Dead and Gone
by Bleedndreamz
Summary: A single look from Naruto told Sarutobi that he may be headed down the path of his former student, Orochimaru. However what if Sarutobi's actions in Naruto's life from then on send him on the path that he specifically wanted Naruto to avoid?
1. You Found Me

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

Some stories start off with a child running down a street, trying to escape an angry mob. Some tell the story of a great demon that attacked a village, and of the story of it's fall. Others opt to write about a young ostracized child walking in on a tomb of untold knowledge. This is not one of those stories, this story starts a bit different.

"This is bullshit!" yelled a young blonde haired child as he backhanded his bowl of ramen to the side all the while glaring at the old man next to him. The said old man had a deepened frown, most likely from the recent language used by the boy, but he couldn't blame him.

"For years these teachers have stunted my growth and you know it!" he began, "I came to you every day after school having to ask you to explain even the littlest of things to me. Honestly what shinobi in training doesn't know how to draw on chakra two years into the academy? Especially when you say I have 'Oh so much" of it?'" the boy could only growl as he ran a hand through his hair doing his best to take in the news the old man had just told him.

The old man, and leader of the village Sarutobi Hiruzen sighed and gave the young girl working the ramen stand an apologetic look and asked her for a few moments of privacy before turning to the boy and saying, "Yes Naruto I do know what you are talking about, and I am sorry for what has happened to you. I knew that they may have been neglecting you a bit, but I did not know it was that bad until it was too late. However remember Naruto, didn't I tell you to only try to graduate the academy when you knew you were ready? Yet you went behind my back for the past two years and tried to test out of the academy."

Naruto frowned and looked down at his hands, "I could be ready if I was given proper teaching old man. You say you knew about them doing this to me, but still nothing has been done. You still let them make a fool of me in front of my class, all the while they hide behind their position of power over me."

Sarutobi took a drag of his pipe that he always kept on him, "You may be right Naruto. However you must realize that as much as I love and care about your progress, until I find suitable replacements for the teaching positions I would need to replace, which in your case is nearly all of them. I have to let them continue teaching. Remember Naruto, I am not the only one to blame for your lack of success thus far. Do your teachers have a hand in it? Yes of course. However you spending your time pulling pranks around the village rather then studying to become a better ninja doesn't help your case. Have you even visited the libra-"

Naruto rubbed his head in frustration, "Yes of course I have! You didn't think I tried to do that before I started pulling pranks! The moment I get into the library I get ushered out by the librarian, who says she doesn't want me in there. She says I am too loud, even though I haven't even said a word."

Sarutobi once again frowned, he didn't want to have all of the blame for the situation placed on him. However the way things were adding up, there really was no way for Naruto to progress as a ninja. Much to his displeasure, people in the village wouldn't give the boy the time of day. He knew Naruto wanted to be successful, however trying to be successful when one doesn't even know where to start was a problem. Every other student in the academy had the option to go to the library in their free time and look at the simple D-rank jutsus in the library, and books on chakra control. Naruto however didn't seem to have that privilege. The only option for him to be able to even remotely try and practice would be taijutsu. The problem with trying to practice taijutsu was if you are practicing it in your own time without a reference and start to learn a style wrong, and develop muscle memory for the incorrect use of a fighting stance or style, suddenly any training you are doing is no longer productive, but counter productive.

However Sarutobi had found a way around this problem quite easily now. While he could not find a complete new set of academy teachers that were unbiased towards Naruto, he could probably find a couple, and then fire the person in charge of the shinobi section of the library. He already knew someone who would be more than willing to fill in for the person he fired at the library. She had been wanting to quit active duty as a shinobi for at least eight years now. However she was just too useful in her shinobi position. Yet... with Uchiha Itachi reaching the rank of Anbu Captain recently, the change shouldn't be an issue.

All throughout Sarutobi's train of thought, he had been zoned out thinking to himself. However the few choice words he zoned back into caused him to see Naruto in a different light. It reminded him of his student.

"You trusted them blindly to adequately teach the students of the academy, to teach me. Yet despite me telling you that they weren't doing their job, their lies had blinded you. However I will figure out how to change things, they thought they were keeping me in the dark resting in that teacher position, that cradle of power. However I will show them that they were deceived." Naruto said as he looked down at his hands in his lap, squeezing his black overalls that hung on his body.

Sarutobi paused for a moment as he looked at Naruto, for once in a long time feeling his old age. He was no longer worried about Naruto receiving adequate training, he was more worried about Naruto following the road less traveled, the road that his former student followed. He coughed lightly into his left hand before laying his right on Naruto's shoulder, "Naruto I will do my best to correct your training. As such, go to the library tomorrow after school, I will place someone in there who can help you out. After that feel free to go there as much as you want to catch up on your work. I believe in you Naruto, I know you can become the rookie of the year if you put your mind to it.

Naruto looked at the old man with a weak smile, "I hope so. Like you said, if I fail one more time, I'm kicked out of the academy, by law."

Sarutobi could do nothing by lightly squeeze Naruto's shoulder and say, "Like I said Naruto, train hard, I believe in you. Believe me, I am a good judge of talent." he said with a small smile, which Naruto returned.

Soon enough the two cleaned up the light mess at the ramen stand, and apologized before parting their separate ways.

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Death, it was inevitable, completely inescapable. It is of rare occasion where someone stalls death, evades him. People call this cheating death? However death can't be cheated, he never loses. Death had been around forever, far before the invention of chakra, far before the Sage of the Six Paths. He could of very well be around before even the creation of this world. The shinobi did not know. To see the world through Death's eyes would be to see a universe, one so vast as to be immeasurable and incomprehensible even to the shinobi's greatest minds.

However Death is not who we are here to talk about, we are here to talk about the woman that loosely evade death. Through the actions of a complaining child, she had been given, and took the opportunity that forever changed the time line, and instead of going on a suicide mission, that would bring her demise she instead ended up working at the northern library of Konoha next to the hospital.

Inuzuka Rin, in her own right an outcast. She was unique... in a bad way. She was the only one in her clan that had been unable to form any bond with the dogs of the Inuzuka compound. As such, she left. In the midst of a shinobi war, she had moved out and lived on her own. She became self sufficient and proficient in medical jutsu. She became one of the most, if not the most valuable medic of the shinobi war with Iwa for one simple reason. She was the medic for the son of White Fang and The Yellow Flash. Both of them forces to be reckoned with, however at the same time both wouldn't have been nearly as good without Rin by their side healing their wounds after each battle allowing them to stay on the move.

Rin sighed as she sat in her desk at the library, it was definitely a relaxing feeling going from an Anbu Captain to the relaxing confines of a library. As a child Rin loved books. Due to her situation at home, with her awkward standing in the Inuzuka clan, and not being accepted by the clan leader Tsume well, she didn't receive help from her family members. Not so much that they hated her, but what can a family that specializes in combat alongside animal companions do to help someone completely unable to form a bond with an animal companion? So as a child most of her knowledge and training was gained on her own terms through hours of research at the library. This contrasted her teammates quite amusingly when she could outsmart the son of the legendary White Fang or a member of the famed Uchiha Clan. She even taught the future Yondaime Hokage a thing or two.

Needless to say she was very book smart as a child, and her skill only grew as she gained more experience and was able to apply her knowledge to actual combat situations.

The academy had just let out and she was patiently awaiting the core part of the assignment, make sure Uzumaki Naruto isn't bothered while in the library, and help him if he has any questions. She had been informed of the young boy's training, and she was a bit disappointed. Not with the village but with herself. She had let her sensei's son down. However more importantly, she let Kushina down. She was likely going to become the godmother for Naruto. Despite Kushina and Tsunade's extremely close relationship, Tsunade refused to set foot in the village, and thus made her an illogical choice to become the boy's godmother.

Godmother? Godfather? The title left a bad taste in her mouth, and she never intended to mention it to Naruto. The fact that being his godmother was supposed to be her role in his life, a role that she had utterly forsaken in favor of burning herself out through mission after mission in Anbu after her sensei's death. She doubted that she would be able to look herself in the mirror if she insisted on calling herself his godmother after her utter failure the first six years of his life. She could only hope that Jiraiya wasn't foolish enough to come up to the boy claiming to be his godfather whenever he comes back to the village. She remembered how she felt about her mother trying to play that card with her.

She had moved out of her own house when she was eight years old, and by the time she was twelve, and completely self sufficient and living on her own, her biological mother butted into her life one day and forbid her from signing up for medical jutsu training, because she felt her daughter should of become a ninjutsu specialist despite not being there raising her. She learned quickly when she got onto her genin team that blood did not mean family, bonds and unbreakable friendships were the foundations of family.

She was brought out of her train of thought when she saw the young Uzumaki standing in front of her with a raised eyebrow. It was as if he was expecting her to screech and send him out.

She paused as she mulled it over.

'That actually probably is what he is expecting.' she thought to herself in silence before smiling at Naruto and asking, "Naruto right?" she questioned momentarily, and continued upon his nod, "Alright, my name is Rin, so you are here to catch up on the academy? In addition to learning more about what it takes to be a shinobi right Naruto?" she asked with a grin.

Naruto however was moderately surprised. It seemed that while the academy was still utter trash, when the old man said he would have something done, he would have it done. "Uhhh yeah?" he said not really sure of himself. He was still surprised about how kind the woman was being to him. It wasn't that the villagers beat the shit out of him or anything like that, however many didn't like him or didn't tolerate him. He imagined his pranks didn't help with the matter either.

Rin pursed her lips in amusement, she knew it wasn't his fault on the matter. However it was rather amusing seeing someone come to the library with no idea what they were looking for. At least from her perspective, being a girl that had gone to the library since she was little knowing exactly what she was going to read and what day she was going to do it. "Well how about you look around and find out what interests you Naruto. Feel free to ask me any questions you have about the subjects you pick out. However if they are above your skill level I will advise you to put them back, of course you don't have to listen to me. It is just that there are things that you should be looking for, such as chakra control, and the basic academy jutsus."

Awe would be an understatement of what the was currently feeling. He looked around the closed off section of the library specifically for shinobi and couldn't help but grin. Meeting a woman that actually tolerated having him around, at least currently, and being given near free reign of the library? Well he certainly felt like a kid in a candy store. So without any questions he darted off around the library picking up book after book from the shelves.

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To say Rin was impressed would be quite the understatement. She almost wanted to call the boy before her a genius. He had been in the library since 3:15 and it was reaching close to 9pm. Now normally the library closed around eight, but Rin was used to late nights as an Anbu. She wasn't looking forward to changing her entire sleep schedule around either. So she didn't mind staying around after hours, especially when the boy reminded her of herself in his current state. A young shinobi in training with no other options as to where they can learn how to be a shinobi throws themselves into books in search of knowledge.

Not to mention how much progress the boy had made, going from not even know how to control his chakra, much less barely even knowing what it was to performing an advanced version of the tree climbing exercise without even knowing it. She had seen him earlier reading about the tree climbing exercise, which in essence is using your bodies chakra to stick to the tree as you climb up it. However what Naruto did was he used his chakra to pick up a book without actually grabbing it. Then walking around the room with his arm directly in front of him holding out the book. In her opinion it was actually a harder exercise then tree climbing. This is due to the fact that when one performs the tree climbing exercise, its not like the tree is moving. So your foundation of the training is constant, and never changing. Eventually you can get the training from simple trial and error.

However with this exercise that Naruto had done, every step that he took, the book would always shake an undetermined amount, that could cause the book to fall from his grasp. However alas, after a few hours of referencing the detailed descriptions in the books that surrounded him, and trying the exercise, he eventually got it. She couldn't wait to see how much more Naruto would grow in this library, but alas all days have to come to an end.

"Alright Naruto it is after hours, I should start closing up the place." Rin said with a smile as she slid out of her seat behind a desk, which she had been sitting in nearly the entire day. Only to get up once or twice to go to the bathroom or get something to read herself.

Naruto however had other ideas, "Oh come on please, can I stay here. I am just getting a hang of all of this and making a lot of progress!" Naruto nearly whined.

Rin looked on in amusement, it wasn't like she had anything to do tomorrow but return her, and she was used to pulling all-nighters in her line of work. So Rin shrugged, "Fine, however this is a one time thing Naruto. I have to stay here as long as you do, so don't expect to have this happen again." she said in amusement as Naruto, like a child quietly said 'Yes!' under his breath at his table before turning about to a book.

Rin sighed as she flipped through the book on her table which was just the basics of nature manipulation, and the uses of water manipulation in medical ninjutsu. It was going to be a long night... but it wasn't going to be one that she minded.

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If someone had come up to her yesterday and told her she was about to witness a child train and study for eighteen hours straight, she would of laughed and called bullshit. However that was exactly what Uzumaki Naruto had just done. However it wasn't the length of time studying that surprised her. No it was the efficiency of how he studied. When people do something for extended periods of time consistently, they develop strategies to help them short cut and work around minor problems and time sinks in whatever activity it is they are doing. For example, a person is painting a fence, but after a few hours into the activity he finds a faster more efficient way to paint it, and reworks his method.

That was essentially what Naruto did the entire night, with his studies, with the basic academy jutsus. Now she had always believed that it would be utterly impossible for a student to just walk into the academy, and walk out as if it was a revolving door unless you were an Uchiha. She knew some of the world's greatest genius' in her shinobi career, and none of them had done that. However Naruto in a single night learned all three of the graduating exam techniques, all in a rather unique fashion too.

For the replacement jutsu, it came to Naruto just naturally. He had an entire library full of objects at his disposal. The basics behind the Kawarimi were simple, substitute your current place with an object through use of the Shunshin no Jutsu. Now Naruto initially was having trouble with the technique, because he didn't understand the Shunshin mechanic of the jutsu. However once he realized that the ability was just through the use of the universal speed technique used by shinobi, and then swapping places with an object on top of that. It was smooth sailing. He saw soon enough swapping places with every chair in the room.

However Naruto did find the jutsu a bit redundant. It the time it took for a person to replace themselves with an object, he could just as easily be behind the opponent by just using the Shunshin no Jutsu and stab his opponent in the back. However it was required, so he didn't think much more of it than that, it was something that needed to be done even if he didn't like it.

The next jutsu was the Henge. This one Naruto already knew the basics of it, because it was one of the ninjutsu he had been trying to get down the day he saw it in the academy. The students all had help trying to get the jutsu down. However once everyone, but Naruto had it down, the class moved on to target practice. So he developed his own version of a henge, one that in his own opinion was better. If he gave it a better name, and didn't call it the sexy no jutsu he could have an advanced, respectable henge on his hands.

The final jutsu, the one that had given Naruto by far the most trouble, the bunshin no jutsu, taking nearly three times as long as it took to get the Kawarimi down. However, in the end he got it down. He had spent hours doing everything right, but not getting anything more then clones that looked as if they were dying. However after banging his hands on the desk in frustration, Rin gave him a single sentence that was the answer to his problem. "If you are having too much trouble making so few clones, try and make more than just three at once."

The effect was instantaneous. However the sight of fifty illusions certainly surprised Rin. When she said try making more, she didn't expect the library to suddenly become filled.

In short once he had mastered those jutsu, he just started reading various books that Rin paid little attention to. The library was a place for knowledge, the more he gets, the better, regardless of the subjects.

So it was quite the surprise when she found out later that morning that Naruto had taken to learning nature manipulation, or more specifically, wind manipulation from a book. He had spent the night with just chakra and a single sheet of lined paper that had since gained several long clean and jagged cuts down the center of it.

Although, if Rin was asked the question "So what was the most interesting thing you learned about Uzumaki Naruto?" her answer would be simple. It wasn't the fact that he had made so much progress with his academy techniques, not to mention wind manipulation with no formal training. No those were impressive, not interesting. What was interesting was that when she asked Naruto why he was learning the wind element, he responded, "It's not just wind that I want to learn, it is merely the first I am trying to learn. This book says that children are born with an affinity, and then are capable of gaining other affinities if they practice with them as they grow older. The potential to gain these extra affinities also seemingly diminishes around age nine or ten, so I don't have a lot of time. However if I can gain a grasp on these affinities before then... well anything would be possible in my climb through the shinobi ranks." he finished with a grin.

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This story was mainly made out frustration with two things.

One was with the way another story on the site was going, I felt that it had lost its initial path and had since started running in circles in development some forty+ chapters into the story.

Also it is me trying to come back from my frustrating absence. If anyone had paid attention to me stories, you would have noticed that pretty much all story updates completely stopped near christmas. This was because I went through a lot of real life stuff, and in truth I couldn't get a break. It came to the point where writing was one of the last things I wanted to do, despite how fun I found it.

Now former readers of my stories may be asking, "Then why the hell are you making a new story and not working on your old ones man!"

The answer is simple. I feel that my writing skills have diminished with time, as I see in this chapter. I wouldn't want to come back from my absence giving everyone a long awaited chapter only for the chapter to be absolute trash.

Finally:

In most of my stories I usually give a list of things I intend to have happen, or my idea of where I want the story to go. That will not happen with this story. The only thing I can really tell you is that you should view the years of Naruto's life up until the story catches up to where Naruto would first join his canon team as one long, but interesting prologue. That however is where the real story will begin.

x

This is based off of LD 1449's challenge.

Quote: "Well the challenge was simple really, In my mind, Naruto and Orochimaru could share very startling similarities in their upbringings because of what Naruto is and how Orochimaru looked. Who's to say Orochimaru didn't want the title of Hokage for the same reason Naruto wants it, for acknowledgment.

So my question is just what would happen if Naruto was denied the title?

What would happen to him?

Would he become like Orochimaru. Possibly, in my mind very probably.

So the challenge is has it sounds. How would you best display the similarities between Naruto and Orochimaru and how very close he is to becoming the monster he hates."

x

So that is the basic concept of the story, similarities between Orochimaru and Naruto, and how other similarities could come up between the two. What would drive Naruto down that road less traveled.

edit: may 18, had to reupload the chapter for some reason because the site was saying that my story no longer existed O-o... So I replaced the old chapter with the this one, I hope it works.


	2. Life Goes On

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

Chapter 2

Sarutobi sighed from behind his desk as he slid back into his chair lighting his pipe. It had been a good month since Naruto had started going to the library, and from what he heard from Rin the boy's progress was extremely remarkable. It was well beyond any standard of genius he had witnessed before... besides one. The ability to look at a scroll and then comprehend it's contents and the best way to go about practicing the technique and executing it? Few had that innate ability off the bat. He didn't have it that was for sure. He was more of a trial and error person himself. The Fourth had always been one to tinker without making many attempts, and once he knew the ability could be executed on paper it only took him one or two attempts to get the ability down after he created it. Uchiha Itachi and Hatake Kakashi were both a couple other genius' that came to mind. However Itachi had the ability to memorize any text and any ability with the glance of an eye. The moment the boy had unlocked the sharingan, he spent the following few days in the library looking through every page of every book in the library. It made learning a joke. His innate encyclopedic memory, coupled with the photographic memory imparted on him with the sharingan made him a vault of information ranging from the handseal sequence to the water dragon jutsu all the way to the correct herbal mixtures to cure the deadliest of venoms. Kakashi had his father behind his back as a child, so naturally he was destined for greatness, this was only further solidified when he came into possession of Obito's sharingan.

Orochimaru on the other hand was different. Some say that the Fourth Hokage was the greatest jutsu inventor Konoha had ever produced. With the Hiraishin and the Rasengan, the deadly combination that had dismantled countless Iwa shinobi forces. Although, Sarutobi knew he would have to disagree. People in life say quality over quantity, however he believed that in regards to inventing, when the quantity became so great as to be oppressive in comparison to the Forth Hokage is when Orochimaru had forever surpassed him. Sure Minato may be forever immortalized, but he knew that the moment his student had begun to fill over a third of the forbidden scroll with his own created jutsus, jutsus that could forever be utilized by anyone? Despite the legendary Snake Sannin's faults and traitorous ways, he still made by far the greatest contribution that Konoha had seen since the Nidaime Hokage.

Orochimaru's learning capabilities had no known bounds as long as he had known him. He could weave hand seals together in ways that he, one of the world's greatest minds, could never comprehend. He had made jutsu creation and learning an art. Living his life idolizing the Nidaime Hokage's ways of swordsmanship, and shortening some of the most powerful jutsus such as the water dragon to a single handseal. It fired a spark in Orochimaru. This spark of interest and idolizing the Nidaime had sent Orochimaru down a path that no Hokage would ever want their shinobi to follow. The path of a missing ninja.

The Nidaime Hokage had created a jutsu, one that was forever thought to be unthinkable. The ability to bring the dead back to life. However the few shinobi that look into the depths of the shinobi world, and it's jutsus they realize something. Equivalent exchange, you cannot gain anything in life without first giving up something of equal or greater value in return. In order to bring something back to life, a life must be sacrificed in return. This was why the jutsu was forever labeled at the greatest forbidden jutsu of Konoha. Even above the dead demon consuming seal that was used to imprison the nine tailed fox. This is simply for the fact that it forces you to sacrifice another living being, not yourself. Also in order to pull off the technique, you must disturb the dead and use, usually former heroes as pawns to fight your battles.

If Sarutobi had known back then about the cursed seals of heaven... the Edo tensei? 'If I had known back then I would have...'

Sarutobi was brought from his thoughts as the two shinobi he had requested walked into the room. "Mizuki, Anko, thank you for quickly reporting in when I had summoned you." Sarutobi said as he calmly took the pipe out of his mouth and balanced it in his palm.

Mizuki however looked clearly confused and out of place by his current situation and decided to ask, "Excuse me Hokage-sama. I must say I am confused, I was under the impression that me and Iruka would be starting our days teaching at the academy today? I thought that was what I was called here for."

The Hokage took a drag on his pipe as he heard the chunin's statement. "That was the original plan, however that plan is no longer valid. I have made some last minute arrangements for Anko to take Iruka's place in the academy until I see fit. The reasons being I will inform her of after I excuse you from this meeting." The end of his statement cleared up the face of a thoroughly confused Anko. Mizuki on the other hand just appeared almost put out by the fact that he wouldn't be alongside Iruka in the academy.

So it didn't take long for the Hokage to explain to the two before him exactly what their jobs at the academy would entail. They were done with the conversation in a matter of minutes, but of course Anko had to stay behind to be debriefed on the last remaining part of her mission.

The two stood standing across from each other. Anko stood fearless, as the Hokage sat looking at her as smoke oozes out his nostrils from his pipe. It was as if they were playing the quiet game, and the first one to talk lost. However naturally the younger, more inexperienced shinobi had lost that contest.

"Permission to speak freely Hokage-sama?" Anko asked with a frown on her face as she stood still in the mission room. The silence in the room was beginning to grate on her nerves, so naturally when Sarutobi had given her the go ahead... well...

"Why in the fuck am I being sent to the academy!" She yelled in frustration as she did her best to restrain herself from stomping over to the Hokage and slamming her hands onto his desk. "Of all places you could send me, a mission to Iwa? A on the field interrogation? Hell even on a puny c-rank mission? Yet no... you chose the academy, full of runts? Why!" Anko massaged her scalp before running a hand through her hair as she stuck her nose up and glared at the Hokage.

Sarutobi couldn't help but smile. It wasn't at her frustration, but it was what the woman resembled. She had trained under Orochimaru, his former student. However with time she had become everything that his student was not. The differences between the two had become blatantly obvious to anyone who paid attention.

Orochimaru always spoke in a calm polite mannered male, where as Anko opted for that of a loud brash woman. Orochimaru was a man that covered his body in robes, barely anything to be seen by the public eye. This was in contrast to Anko who could walk outside naked and the public wouldn't be seeing much more of her than what she was typically wearing in the past. Even to the extent of their morals. She would willingly die, commit suicide, to stop Orochimaru a man who had forsaken everything in the pursuit of immortality.

She had been trained under his watchful eye, but their actions and appearances couldn't be any more different.

Sarutobi raised his hand which instantly had the effect of cutting off Anko's rant. With her permission to speak freely, she still knew that it wouldn't take much for the Hokage to snap her like a twig if he had wanted to. "I have personally requested you to work at the academy because of a few issues that have arisen in a child's situation at the academy. Uzumaki Naruto received biased treatment that did not work in his favor while he was in the academy. Around a month ago he had confronted me about the issue, and I said I would do all I could to try and redeem this problem. Initially I fired, and hired a new full time employee at the library that was happily willing to let Naruto browse around and read the books in the library. To be honest his progress so far has been remarkable, far more progress than I have ever seen in any shinobi in such a short period of time."

Anko raised an eyebrow at that statement filing the information away for another time. For a shinobi who had seen easily the world's greatest ninja, not to mention trained or mentored at least four of them, for him to see something he had never seen before in a young boy way surprising.

"Although as time went on, I never foresaw the consequences of giving Naruto free reign on the library. I wanted Naruto to use the library as a tool, a place that he could go to after school and start learning how to become a shinobi at his own pace. A place he could go to make up for any biased treatment he may receive during the academy. However instead he after going to the academy for about three days after being introduced to the library promptly stopped going. He is convinced that he will learn faster outside of the academy, and that there is nothing in the academy that would be worth the time he would spend away from the library. If I was to be honest with myself, I'd know Naruto would be right in his assumption." Sarutobi paused as he began to choose his words for what he was about to say.

"Naruto's academy life currently is in a position where he is learning anything due to the biased opinion's of the teachers to Naruto's special situation. As such Naruto does not have a good time at the academy, and it puts him in a bad mood. I opened the library for him to obtain the knowledge he needed, but still wanted him to go to the academy because in the academy they teach teamwork. They teach young shinobi to get along with people that you don't like for the sake of the bigger picture. The night I decided that I should make some changes for the sake of making Naruto's life easier he gave me a look. It was a look I hadn't seen in a very long time, but it was one I still remember vividly till this day. Your former sensei had given me the look young Naruto gave me when he was describing essentially being held back by the people around him. Naturally, I imagine you know better than anyone what happened to Orochimaru after that, don't you Anko?" Sarutobi said as he took a long drag on his pipe.

Anko however had her blood chill at that revelation. She didn't know whether it was because her past, or because she didn't want to be like her sensei. However she knew after the mention of the wisest man in the village seeing similarities between Orochimaru and Naruto in their child hood was not a good thing. The fact was, she had been down that road, right in the passenger seat the entire way when Orochimaru had fallen. The betrayal she felt, but more importantly the loss she was forced to deal with. To see someone who had once been so strong, so righteous. A man who appeared as if nothing could stop him, nothing could get in his way had since fallen, and tossed her, likely the closest person to him away like trash. She didn't want to see a repeat of history, not just for the sake of being able to not have to look into the future of a possible traitorous jinchuriki and saying that she may have been able to prevent the situation. No, she wanted to make it so Naruto wouldn't go down that road so he didn't hurt not only himself, but the people around him that will eventually grow to care for him.

"Alright fine!" Anko said in exasperation as she threw her hands up in the air surrendering. "I will work at the academy, however don't expect me for a second to go easy on those little brats."

Sarutobi couldn't hold back a small smile from gracing his lips, "I would expect nothing less from such a fine shinobi like yourself." he finished with a small smirk before adding an after thought, "However you may want to change your state of dress when teaching at the academy."

Anko instead of looking embarrassed, or ashamed like most women would given her state of dress. Anko merely grinned and started backing out of the office, "Nah, I like it. Teaches male shinobi's to resist temptation." She said tossing a wink to the old man before closing the door behind her as she exit.

If Anko had stayed around, she would have gotten the opportunity to see the rare occasion of the leader of the Hidden Leaf Village get slightly flushed at her statement.

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Rin listened carefully to the chunin that had come and sent a message to her from the Hokage. She knew that Naruto wasn't going to school, however she didn't personally feel that it was that big of a deal. The graduation exam for Konoha tests you on everything that you have learned throughout your years at the academy. The test assumes you have all of the knowledge that is asked on the test. So if someone was in essence able to graduate from the academy without going a single day, then it wasn't that big of a problem, because the graduated through the exam. If they were able to pass the exam without going a single day to the academy, it just meant that despite never going, they were capable of being a good shinobi due to their own paper skill level.

It was mainly a system that was put in place during times of war so that small villages such as Yugakure who economically get destroyed by the way, and are forced to find a new home. As a shinobi nation whose power is not derived from the people, but from the shinobi force themselves and their military power. A village can never have too many ninja.

As she mulled over the news she was told to forward to Naruto, she could see the sense in it if she looked underneath the underneath. The shinobi that isolate themselves often don't remain very stable in the head. A perfect example would be that of her teammate, Kakashi. He was quite a nice guy if you knew him, even if he can be a condescending asshole at times. The problem was nobody saw that when they looked at Kakashi. They merely saw a shinobi that never spent time with anyone, and spent all of his time reading his perverted novels. No one approached him, and he was content with things being that way. It didn't mean they didn't respect him. In truth Kakashi had turned out not half bad. Despite his oddities, he was quite the good and loyal shinobi.

The problem was when it came to a situation where the shinobi actually did mind the isolation. In fact hated it. Being isolated or not being given the time of day in the village due to appearance is what had happened to the Snake Sannin. He had forever wanted the acknowledgement of his peers, and in her opinion, Orochimaru did want people around him. It just came to a point that when people actually started to warm up to him in his shinobi career, it was too little too late.

You had Jiraiya who was seen as the jokes of the class amongst the shinobi of his time. Stories of him being bullied were the ones she often heard from her own Sensei. However he persevered. He wanted to be more like Orochimaru, to be as skilled as him, to receive the praise that he gained from Sarutobi. For a long time, he was always in Orochimaru's shadow. There was really no way he could compare to the genius of the century and Tsunade, who was essentially Sarutobi's family having gone through training under the Shodaime and Nidaime Hokages.

Soon enough Jiraiya had wizened up and went off to gather his own strength, and thus becoming the first Sannin to obtain a summoning contract and arguably one of the most famous summoning contracts in the world.

Soon enough both Jiraiya and Tsunade had both moved on. Jiraiya to try and make a name for himself, created his own personal spy network. Tsunade immortalized her name in history as the world's greatest medic ninja, still to this date. Where as Orochimaru was stuck, with a general goal in life, but a goal that was out of reach. Learning every ninjutsu in the world? How could one possibly go about doing that? Sooner or later one would hit a road block, and suddenly break down due to a lack of progress. It would appear as if your world had stopped, while everyone around you continued progressing and making your accomplishments appearing utterly insignificant.

At least that was Rin's theory as to what drove Orochimaru mad. After that point he likely tried to give himself a purpose by selecting an apprentice and competing for the title of Hokage. Imagine the blow to his pride when he realized that not only had he lost the title to someone else, he had lost the title to someone that his teammate who was viewed as the academy idiot had trained.

However she couldn't continue her train of thought as a loud explosion sounded right near her, almost as if it was mere feet before her. She looked up to see bits and pieces of saw dust floating down in the air as if it was snowing, and splinters littered the floor, along with the remains of a wooden chair.

'How...' Rin thought as she massaged her temples in frustration, 'I literally take my eyes off you for what? Five minutes to think about something, and you blow up a chair?' "So what happened this time Naruto?" she asked in exasperation.

Naruto gave a lopsided grin, no longer uncomfortable in her presence anymore after practically spending every day the last month together from early morning to late at night. "Well..." he thought carefully how to word his statement as to not piss Rin off... completely. "I told you I was experimental with wind nature manipulation right?"

Rin sighed as she stepped out of her chair and walked around her desk to the corner of the room to where she had a small plastic grocery bag filled with around three fist sized rocks. "Of course I know Naruto, you don't stop talking about how you literally stay up all night cutting anything you can with your wind chakra, like these rocks!" she said rather loudly as she threw the bag of rocks like a ball at Naruto.

Naruto with impressive speed was able to pull a large text book off of the shelf in time and deflect that bag of rocks aimed for his head. "Hey! You say you want to hear about how my training is going Rin. Don't try and hold that over my head."

Rin let a small grin slip as she reminded Naruto, "Your right, I do want to hear about your training. I tell you that all the time. You remember what else I told you? I wouldn't be paying for any more chairs you break as you try to manipulate air pressure. Now clean that up," she said motioning to the splinters that littered the floor, "and we will go get some ramen. I have something I need to talk to you about." She finished her statement by putting on her black jounin vest that she takes off to lounge around, and made her way to the door.

Naruto continued looking at her retreating form as he grew pale at the implications. He was suddenly going to have quite the flat wallet by the end of the day.

Naruto moved over to the the desk the Rin typically sat at, and if anyone had been looking at the events that followed they wouldn't be able to hold in their surprise by the amount of skill the child possessed.

Naruto held out his hand forward steadily as he concentrated and focused his chakra. Then with one swift motion, he reached his hand down before pulling it back up. The act had caused a strong gust of wind to blow through the room, turning pages of the many books that remained scattered and open on the tables Naruto frequented. The splintered wood and saw dust had kicked up and levitated calmly in the air, no longer obeying gravity as chakra and wind kept it afloat. Then with another hand movement of him drawing the floating particles to him before sending them into the plastic bag, his job with cleaning up the library was done.

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Rin had opted to go ahead of Naruto straight to Ichiraku ramen, and sit down in the stands to await her newly made friend. As much as she would of liked to relax, she couldn't. She had a mission report to fill out, and as such she pulled out a small notepad with a pen. It didn't take long for her to start scribbling down the important facts about the mission thus far.

_Nothing out of the ordinary with the typical library duty, as expected._

Uzumaki Naruto had been showing an extreme rapid growth rate in the art of wind manipulation. From what he has been telling me he has been staying up nightly, getting as little as an hour of sleep, if any at all to continue practicing. There has been no signs of ill effects of his training habits and sleeping habits.

He has been taking home all of the books on elemental manipulation daily. His reading speed has increased drastically from when he initially came to the library.

His nature manipulation has been growing quickly, going through the basic steps it would take for anyone to learn them. It just appears that Naruto is grasping the concepts far quicker than what is expected, and is able to apply them to his practice. However I do believe that mentally it would be quite difficult for a boy his age to be able to learn and process information at this speed. Perhaps he is absorbing information like a sponge because of the regenerative abilities of the fox. It may be making the intake of information come more easily and settle into the brain at a faster rate then normal?

Only a theory. However if it were true, you could also rationalize the foxes influence to extend as to why he isn't feeling the effects of sleep deprivation.

So with his firm grasp on wind manipulation, he says he intends to work on water or earth manipulation next. He is still intent on gaining all elemental affinities before he reaches his teens. I don't know if that is even possible. Yet with his current rate of growth, I would be inclined to say that nothing is impossible for the child. I will have to see if this pace continues, or eventually slows down.

She quickly rolled up the scroll as Naruto walked into the stand. No need for him to start questioning her about a certain fox that he read about himself having from over her shoulder.

After Naruto had taken the time to order his ramen, there was a bit of small chat between everyone. Both Rin, Naruto and the Ichiraku's enjoyed each other's company. So naturally the conversations were quite interesting, even if the funnest ones were teasing Naruto about little things, such as the first time he discovered how to manipulate air pressure, a cup of hot ramen exploded in his face.

But, soon enough the conversations had died down and Rin turned to Naruto and said, "Alright, I will just be blunt with you. I love your company Naruto, but you can't keep skipping school. You have to go the the academy. The Hokage has arranged for some new teachers to be filling in some old ones. Hopefully they will be less biased towards you then the last ones were. Bottom line though Naruto, I'm keeping you out of the library till three from now on.

Naruto's mouth hung open, as if someone in front of him had kicked a puppy.

He sunk his shoulders and sighed as he asked Rin a simple question, "This is about the chair isn't it?"

Rin could only grin as she opted to continue eating her ramen instead of answering the question.

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Something frustrating keeps happening with this story for some reason. Earlier today it appeared the story got deleted, which I redeemed by replace the old chapter with a new one. However then now the story isn't showing up on my profile page. It never shows that the stories themselves ever actually get deleted from my stats or the "my stories" tab on my profile. Its just that the story or reviews or its link on my profile randomly disappears.

Does anyone know why this could be happening? Did I post something in my last chapter that warranted a story removal that I'm not aware of? I have changed my profile password, so I don't exactly know what is going on. If anyone has any possible feedback as to why the site is doing this, I am more than welcome to listen.

Please note this isn't happening to any of my older stories, just this new one.

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I also need two female japanese names, and one male japanese name.

The females are also going to be rather strong characters, where as the male is going to be more passive aggressive.

Also if you post any names, please post what they mean. Thank you, I hope you enjoyed this chapter.

Read and Review.


	3. Do you like your lips?

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

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Naruto had only been in the academy till lunch and he now knew that he would go insane sooner or later. If the academy was frustrating before with the lack of teaching it was hell now. Before he had the opportunity to try and comprehend what was going on, and what the teachers were talking about. Now he was forced to sit through boring lectures of information he already knew, now ignored not for the fact that the teacher Mizuki didn't like him. No now he was ignored because he couldn't go out of his way to teach Naruto something more advanced while trying to teach the class the general basics.

Just because new teachers were in the academy didn't eliminate the problem that no one would talk to him. All of the students split up at lunch into separate groups at lunch. You had the normal students, that were just making their way through the academy. This group consisted of the bug user, the Inuzuka, Shikamaru, and Chouji. They were quite casual in their approach to the academy. Yet, when Naruto tried to approach the group, Kiba would chase him off saying that shinobi operated in four man cells while playing ninja. This went undisputed by Shikamaru who was overly lazy, or his best friend Chouji whom always followed him. Shino, in Naruto's opinion probably felt whether Naruto played with them or not was inconsequential, so he didn't dispute it.

Then there were the females of the class. They all fawned over Sasuke, and followed him around due to his "Rookie of the Year" status. That and supposedly his hair was 'So Dreamy'... Naruto didn't really bother to delve deeper then that. Perhaps some of the girls in the group weren't head over heels for the Uchiha, but in Naruto's eyes they were guilty by association.

Of course with everyone, but one person in his year being taken care of... it left the last, and least desired option. Uchiha Sasuke. In Naruto's opinion, the kid was a prick. He always showed off, and tried to impress his older brother Itachi all of the time. He was completely against any form of communication with anyone in the academy. Naruto knew that for a fact, seeing as how he distinctly remembered passing the boy by the lake repeatedly, only to get glared at when approached.

So naturally when Sarutobi had popped up next to Naruto rested a hand on his shoulder, he had no qualms about telling the Hokage about his decision to be sent back to the academy.

"This is idiotic." Naruto said with a frown on his face as he poked at his food with a chopstick. He had absolutely no desire to eat at the moment.

The Hokage gave a small smile at the young boy beside him, before sitting down next to him. "Would you care to elaborate on what is idiotic Naruto?"

Naruto sighed and stopped playing with his food to give the Hokage his attention, "It is just idiotic that I am back in the academy, at least at this point. Honestly I'm in one of the earliest classes in the academy, and I know I could graduate right now."

Sarutobi shook his head and set his Hokage hat down on the table. "Now Naruto, there is more to being a shinobi than practical knowledge."

Naruto ran a hand through his hair as he looked over the lunch area, "I know that... its just despite the changes to the academy I am back at square one. I am no longer in a position where I am being ignored by the teachers because they don't like me for some reason. Now I am just being ignored because I already know everything that is being taught, and there is nothing I can learn about the replacement jutsu that I don't already know." Naruto said in a bitter tone.

Sarutobi gently ran his thumb over the symbol of fire on his hat before speaking, "I see. Well it is actually alright Naruto that you feel this way. I rather anticipated this, I have been having Rin give me reports on your progress, which I must say I am most impressed with."

Naruto's eye had since widened slightly at that statement. However he knew it was to be expected if he choose to think about it. Of course she would be reporting into the Hokage. She had replaced the last librarian on the Hokage's order, and he knew she was a shinobi. Therefore he knew that she reported in directly to the Hokage. With him spending day after day in the library, it was only natural that his progress would be forwarded to the Hokage.

Sarutobi coughed lightly into his hand, "So as I expected, you would be probably a bit too advanced for the classes of your age group. I had hoped that I would have been able to send you back to the academy in time for you to make friends with children your own age... but I am afraid that given our current situation, you haven't been able to do such a thing?" Sarutobi observed with a weak smile.

Naruto knew it was a rhetorical question that didn't need to responded to. Being alone at a lunch table playing with his food gave away the answer.

"So with the situation escalating to this point, I feel I should provide the offer to advance you a couple years ahead in the academy. Perhaps the later years will give you more of a challenge, and I know the teacher of that class quite well. She may be tough, but she does teach quite well if you get past her exterior." Sarutobi couldn't hold back the amusement in his voice as he said that last line of the statement. His amusement only reached higher levels when Naruto almost literally jumped at the opportunity of a class change.

"What class do I go to?" Naruto said quickly, more then happy at the prospect of no longer needing to read "Chakra and You" for the fifteenth time that month.

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Naruto stood outside the door of his new classroom taking in a deep breath. It was a new environment, and new people, and first impressions were everything. He knew that walking into the classroom, a six your old joining a class of eight year olds... the circumstances make a statement in their own right. Naruto knew that the message it could very easily send to the people in the class is that "I'm better than you." which wasn't a message he wanted to convey. He honestly didn't care about being the best, and didn't care about showing off. Now that he had delved into information and knowledge, the prospect of showing off your talents to everyone else... just for the sake of showing off felt rather pathetic to him.

So with another deep breath, he slid open the classroom door and stepped into the room. As expected most of the room had turned to look at him, as did the teacher. Although... the first words the teacher had said were those he hadn't expected.

Perhaps, "Yes? How may I help you?" or maybe, "Is there a message you have for me?" or possibly, "Are you my new student?"

He did not expect her to blatantly say, "Sit down in an empty seat short stuff and pay attention. I'll introduce you later."

Naruto couldn't help but purse his lips in amusement as he walked up to the back of the class as he continued to pay attention to the teacher's lecture. He had taken the desk situated above a couple of students, male and female. The later seemingly irritated by her male partner sitting next to her, if her composure and posture had anything to say for it.

Naruto looked back up to the teacher, who he had rationalized was Anko by the fact that on the board there was a sticker that has "Mr." on it. However the "Mr." sticker had the majority of it covered in black in, and off to the side in really big letters it said "Just ---- Anko".

She was currently yelling at one of the girls in the corner of the room, which in his opinion she was far more amusing and entertaining than any other person he had the pleasure of meeting in life thus far.

"Do you like your lips Kimiko? Do you like where they are?" She asked calmly, however the was an underlying dangerous tone to her voice which many of the students caught on to. Kimiko was the equivalent of the fangirls he had in his previous year, who happened to not catch onto the tone.

"Yes Anko-sensei, I thi-"

"Good, but if you don't keep your mouth shut while I'm talking, I'm going to come over there and smack your lips right off your face." Anko this time didn't try to hide the dangerous tone that she had in her voice when she threatened the student.

The said girl looked like death was staring her in the face, and promptly snapped her mouth shut.

"Alright you, gaki of gakis, come down here, introduce yourself to your new classmates." Anko said with a grin as she took a couple steps back, to sit on her desk.

Much to Naruto's displeasure, he realized quickly that the statement was directed at him, and begrudgingly made his way to the front of the class. His introduction he wanted to keep very short and simple, "Uzumaki Naruto." With that being said we went back and sat down. Anko looked over to him and shrugged, she didn't care if he was big sharing with the students on the first day. She just knew damn well that later on he would start sharing with her. That was honestly all that she cared about. She knew how to get Naruto off of the wrong path, not Kimiko of section one, row two, seat three.

Naruto sat back down in his chair and zoned out for the rest of the school day, barely paying attention. Anko had just been going over what she expected from the class now that she was teaching. She also said that she had no idea what rules or disciplinary actions she may add to the already standard school list. So she reserved the right to add more to the list at any time she chose.

The time flew by as the class came to an end for the day. The students started filing out of the room, and outside where parents had lined up to pick up their children from school. If Naruto hadn't been so fixated on the scene going on outside, he would have seen Rin in the corner of the yard waiting for him.

The problem was he couldn't help but look. The scene before him wasn't spectacular or even noteworthy to the average individual. The problem was that to Uzumaki Naruto he couldn't help but get jealous. The site of parents giving their children a hug, ruffling their hair affectionately. It was a scene that Naruto couldn't pry his eyes away from, much to his displeasure. It was going to just be one of those things in life that he knew he would just need to suck up and deal with the fact that when he went home, he would be returning home to no one.

This look didn't go unnoticed by the exiled Inuzuka who had since came up behind Naruto and put her hand on his shoulder. She then ushered him away from the crowd gently. There was no reason for Naruto to force himself to watch something that he would never actually experience for himself.

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Naruto slowly slid into his chair at the library while Rin had moved into her desk.

Rin didn't exactly know what to say at present point. She knew Naruto had been down since the sight of all of the parents picking up their children after school. The problem was, what could she say to really help Naruto? "So Naruto... how was school today?" She asked, trying her best to sound genuinely curious while trying to cover up anything else she was currently feeling.

Naruto shrugged his shoulders, "It was alright I guess." Naruto said quietly as he opened up the elemental manipulation book.

Rin sighed, and continued to ask questions, hoping to get Naruto's mind out of the gutter. "Well did you make any new friends since you went back to the academy?"

Naruto once again shrugged his shoulders, much to Rin's annoyance, "Not really. I didn't get along with any kids my age, and when I got transferred to a higher class, I didn't really have time to talk to anyone."

Rin stood up and walked over to the table where Naruto was sitting, "Well I hope that means that tomorrow you are going to try and make friends right Naruto?"

Pursing his lips, Naruto grabbed another book in frustration, "I don't know? Maybe? I don't really see the point."

Rin put her hand on top of the books Naruto was looking at and forcefully stopped him from turning any more pages, "Naruto, I want to see you make friends. You may think I'm pressuring you, but I just want you to try."

Naruto rolled his eyes, and pried Rin's hands off of the book and said, "Like I said, I don't see the point. I spend all of my time after school in the library learning anyways, and I like doing it. What would be the point of making friends if I never spend time with them anyways?"

Rin tried her best not to frown, "You don't know that Naruto, you may find out that your friends are far more fun that being in the library, and you will forget about little old me." She finished with a grin as she reached over the table and ruffled Naruto's hair.

Naruto looked irritated at having to fix his hair and said, "If I say yes, will you let me study and quit messing up my hair."

With a gleam in her eye Rin responded slowly, "Maybe..."

Naruto resisted the urge to slam his face into his palms, as he closed his eyes and massaged his temples. "Fine I will try to make friends, now go away..."

He heard the chair slide out from the table, and breathed a sigh of relief. That was until he felt her hand in his hair once again, making it far messier than before. Naruto looked up quickly to see a smirking Rin making her way back to her desk. Although she had forgotten one thing about the boy before her. Despite his attitude and study habits now, before all of that he was a prankster.

Rin moved to sit down watching Naruto as he picked up his book off the table. However just before she had sat down, she saw Naruto flick his wrist and a gust of wind had blown her chair on wheels out from under her. This of course ended with Rin falling to the floor flat on her ass.

Much to Rin's annoyance she heard Naruto stifle a giggle as he casually looked over to where Rin had fallen. "Are you okay Rin?" He asked barely containing his amusement as she had finally gotten back into her chair. "I hope that fall didn't hurt... much." He finished with an after thought as he shot her a large grin, much to Rin's annoyance. After the brief comment, Naruto went back to the book he was reading and turned the page to: _The Basics of Lightning Chakra._

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Naruto had been treating this as if it was his first day of school at the academy all over again. He had woken up ridiculously early. Got ready a good hour and a half before hand. Made himself a light breakfast, which consisted of a single cup of ramen.

He had made his way to the academy nearly a half hour early. He had expected no one to be in the classroom, but he was quite surprised when he found several students already there. Among them was the girl that had sat in front of him the previous day.

Upon further observation of the room, he realized that most people weren't sitting in the seats they usually sat in. This lead him to believe that the class didn't have any form of seating arrangement, and it was just sit where you choose. So with his promise to try and make friends in mind, he went over to the girl he had sat behind the other day. Worst come to worst, if she wasn't much of a talker, he had a book on elemental manipulation on him that he could always read.

He walked over calmly, and up to the row she was on and stood next to her before asking, "You don't mind if I take a seat do you?" Naruto asked politely.

The girl on the other hand had her face flash through several emotions before it looked as if a light bulb went off on her head. "You don't talk a lot do you?" she asked quickly as she began to gather all of her things.

Naruto raised an eyebrow, but none the less shook his head.

"Perfect, come here." she gathered her things together and moved down to the far left side of the row, boxing herself in between the left wall and had motioned for Naruto to sit on her right.

Once the two of them got situated Naruto couldn't help but ask, "So... why did we change seats exactly? What was the point of you boxing yourself into the corner?"

"You will see soon enough." She said calmly as she pulled out a book from her bag and opened it to begin reading.

Naruto was puzzled by the statement, but shrugged it off and allowed him time to take in her appearance.

She had shoulder length black hair, that contrasted her light pink pupil-less. Her skin slightly tan, so Naruto assumed that she probably trained outside quite a bit, if her toned arms had anything to say for it. She wore a dark red shirt coupled with black pants.

The girl didn't appear to be much of a talker, so Naruto wouldn't force her into conversation, and allowed her to continue reading. He opened up his own book and took out a small note pad on the side of the book and begin jotting down various notes about the things he should try to attempt to learn various nature manipulations.

Time flew by relatively quickly to the point of where it was only five minutes before class. That was when he realized why the girl he was sitting next to had wanted to change seats. A young boy had ran into the room he had dark brown hair, pale skin, and high cheek bones. He had a large grin on his face until he had looked over and spotted the girl he was sitting next to yesterday.

He briskly made his way over to the row where both Naruto and the girl were situated and said, "Ayane-chan how could you!" he actually sounded quite hurt in his statement, "First I ask you to wake me up and wait for me. Yet here you are spending time with the new kid."

The newly named Ayane looked mildly annoyed at the suffix added to her name, but none the less shrugged, "Not my fault you sleep like the dead Takeshi, perhaps you shouldn't rely on me to get you up in the morning."

The boy Takeshi opened and closed his mouth several times before he looked toward Naruto with a glare, as if he was sizing the boy up. Naruto didn't think it was possible but it was almost as if this boy was acting equivalent to that of a fangirl from his previous class. The boy was sizing him up as if he was competition.

Naruto at first assumed they were family until he realized how the boy was speaking to the girl, "Aya-chan I don't like this kid!" he said blatantly in front of Naruto.

Ayane's reaction was quite amusing though, she stood up and reached over Naruto pushing the boy down a row, "I told you not to call me that you fool!"

Ayane did her best to gain her composure whilst sitting back down and turning to Naruto, "I'm Kazama Ayane, and the fool on the ground in front of us is Hayata Takeshi." she said reaching out her hand.

Naruto raised an eyebrow but promptly shook her hand saying, "Uzumaki Naruto..."

They were broken from their introduction by the teacher in front of the class saying, "Ahh well glad to see the new kid is making friends. However if the loved birds in the top left corner of the room would find their seats, I can promptly begin class." Said the purple haired teacher as she calmly put a plate of dango on her desk and began eating a stick.

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I'm horrible at finding a beta, so I hope my chapters are sucking in the grammar department :(...

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Thank you everyone that supplied me with character names. I actually found one that I really liked and intend to use for the last remaining character.

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Some people don't like OCs however I promise that these OCs will be developed. They aren't any romantic interests for Naruto is people are already getting worried.

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Now here is a pretty big thing that I accidentally ran into because I screwed up on character ages early on in the story. I am going to be having time skips relatively soon. I don't want to go back in the story and correct mistakes forcing you all to reread the chapters, because of my screw up. So I am proposing an option for the readers to just give your opinion on.

1: I have a 4 year time skip. This was going to be an original idea, the problem with this is I feel it doesn't give you the time to show these OCs grow. As such... here is my second proposition.

2: I have a two year time skip. Do part of the prologue at this point in time, and after that part of the prologue is complete, I will have another time skip.

The only reason why I am giving the option to the fans of this story is because both options don't really bother me. However I will say that the characters will be graduating from the academy at both time skips. Whether it be two years, or four years. They will be graduating from the academy at that time to progress the prologue.

The problem with a 4 year time skip is it also makes Naruto seem incredibly powerful by the time he is out of the timeskip. Just because I don't write about it during the time skip doesn't mean he hasn't been training. I don't think you guys as fans will appreciate a Naruto that essentially goes away for 4 years knowing how to manipulate wind rather effectively, then suddenly being able to manipulate 3 or four elements quite well?

Anyways that is the main reason I am proposing the question. I am more inclined to having the two year time skip, I just don't want to hear any QQ about Naruto graduating at age 8, or anyone else graduating early for that matter.

So read and review :)


	4. The Important Blemishes

If someone had come up and told Naruto a year ago that he was going to be one of the youngest genin that Konoha had ever produced, he would have laughed. However now looking down at the headband that he had grasped in his hand. The past two years had gone by like it was nothing. He had changed, he had grown as a shinobi, but also as a person.

When Rin had pulled him aside those two years ago and asked him to try and make friends, he thought it was a joke. She said it would be good for him to get some friends around his own age. She said it was unhealthy for him to spend all of his time stuck in a library. Honestly it was quite ironic hearing it from her, but it didn't make it any less the truth. To add salt to a wound, when he had gone out and made a weak friendship with a couple of students in his class, he had realized that Rin was right. That is was good for him... even though friends reduced his training time.

Now don't be mistaken Naruto's intelligence it the past two years had grown exponentially. His skill level had grown as did his ability to apply his knowledge to simulated combat situations. He had gone from only being able to manipulate wind chakra, to being able to manipulate wind, water, and lightning.

Sure he didn't know any jutsu to go with the affinities. However he could still manipulate the chakra into a deadly force. Although that wasn't the important stuff that happened during these two years.

Everyone wants to hear about the hero of the story progressing in power, and the cool new abilities he gains. They see that as the important stuff. However during these two years, they would be wrong. None of that stuff is important. This is the stuff that's important.

How Naruto had been worked into Ayane and Takeshi's life, or more specifically, how they were worked into his story.

Naruto had been topping the class charts constantly in the academy, much to the displeasure of other students in his class. He made them appear utterly inferior to him. However he didn't mind, he had been having quite the good time with his newly made friends... but he would never let them know that. In the academy as he grew he had developed a signature attitude that was completely his own in his class. In blunt terms, he was quite the jerk. It came to the point in class where he knew everything that was being taught and opted to read books in class instead. He even sometimes helped grading papers since the only thing that held him back on tests was how fast he could write the answers down.

He had grown to realize with time that both Ayane and Takeshi were both exceedingly intelligent in their areas of interest. Although the former it was much easier to tell.

They had formed an interesting relationship, the three of them. Naruto came to realize that Takeshi had quite the crush on Ayane, if it wasn't blatantly obvious the first day that he met the two of them.

Both Ayane and Takeshi lived together, under Ayane's family. Ayane's father was formerly a traveling trader that had since built up residence in Konoha a few years ago. Her mother was a former Iwagakure jounin that had defected from Iwa in the middle of the, and joined Konoha. That didn't stop her from having pride for her former village in the least. It was just as the war went on, and the yellow flash had gotten onto the field, it became glaringly obvious which side was going to win the war. Especially once Iwa's supply was cut off.

It explained Ayane's choice of clothing change she went through after a year of knowing her. Blatantly wearing a red shirt with a brown shinobi vest over it with pride. She may of lived in Konoha, she may have grown up there, but she never forgot where her families origins came from. It explained her incredible talent with earth jutsus quite easily as well.

Naruto and Ayane got along perfectly, to be honest there was even a slight crush in there on Ayane's part. However Naruto almost destroyed the entire friendship they had built up with one encounter around a year ago.

_Flashback:_

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_Both Ayane and Takeshi had stopped by Naruto's house to see how he was doing as a spur of the moment type of thing. After a year, despite Naruto being cold at times, they both knew that he cared for the two of them. So they got past the times he would act cocky or rather rude._

_They invited themselves into the house since Naruto kept his house unlocked anyways. As a kid he messed with people, pulling pranks on them. So naturally he felt he made quite a few enemies. So when it came down to them breaking into his apartment and breaking any piece of furniture he had, he quickly stopped buying furniture. He just opted to live like that of an actual ninja. The very basics of living were in his house. He had a bed, a desk with a rather worn chair. The only thing that actually stood out in his room was the absurdly large book case that was made of metal, that was fitted as if it was a safe. It had a lock and everything. Other than that there was nothing else that showed any real personality in his room. No pictures, no toys, nothing._

_As such when people began to realize that he no longer had anything, they just stopped bothering and life continued on._

_Yet... there is a reason why it is common practice to knock before entering. There was a Naruto sitting in the middle of the floor half naked with a bunch of light bulbs littering the ground, connected to his toes and fingers by shinobi wire. Each one was randomly lighting up in quick succession, until Takeshi had coughed into his hand._

_Naruto stood up and turned around rolling his eyes at the two only friends his age in the door way. He had a toned body despite his age, but most shinobi and shinobi in training did. The tiny pink tint that came onto Ayane's face didn't help the situation any, as naturally Takeshi quickly noticed. This of course prompted him to quickly make his way to Naruto and usher him into his bedroom telling him, "Put some damn clothes on."_

_Naruto walked into his room and started rummaging through his dresser as he said in an overly loud voice, "It's not my fault that Ayane likes what she sees!"_

_This statement had caused Takeshi to roll his eyes, he had grown accustomed to Naruto teasing both he and Ayane despite the fact that Naruto knew he was trying to be with her. However it didn't help that Ayane had flushed a darker shade of red upon Naruto's statement._

_Moments later Naruto walked out of his room with the only thing added to his former attire of shorts was a black tank top. The moment he was in the presence of his friends Takeshi spoke up, "More clothes."_

_Naruto smirked and ignored the statement going over to his sealed book shelf._

_Ayane quickly realized that she was blushing like some childish fangirl and snapped out of her daze, doing her best to try and recover her hard exterior, "You know Naruto, you should really present yourself more appropriately in the presence of your betters." she said with amusement dancing in her eyes._

_Naruto turned from the bookshelf after retrieving a book, and looked at the grinning duo, "Really? Well I will take your advice, luckily there is no one in the world that qualifies as my betters in my own home. So I am afraid you will have to deal with my toned muscles leaving you a blushing mess."_

_This statement of course left a couple shinobi in training rather disgruntled, but none the less carried on with their short visit. They really didn't talk about anything that amazing, in fact it was quite insignificant small talk that they made. It usually was just that. Naruto had grown accustomed to when he had friends occasionally they would just stop by his house and say hi, and frankly while he would never admit it, it was nice knowing there were people out there thinking about him._

_Soon enough Takeshi had to leave. Around a month ago Takeshi had opted to go out and get a job. He didn't like the prospect that he was freeloading off of Ayane's family, despite his situation. He was able to get a job at a blacksmith's shop. The owner of the shop had a daughter in the academy, and after hearing Takeshi complaining about not being able to find jobs anywhere in the village, Tenten the blacksmith's daughter forwarded the boy to her father. Needless to say Takeshi got in shape quickly doing that job, and became quite a weapon specialist in the sense that he knew the uses for many different weapons in a short period of time._

_This left both Ayane and Naruto alone in his apartment, and this was when Naruto initiated the conversation that nearly tarnished their friendship._

_"Why do you keep ignoring Takeshi's affections for you?" Naruto said with a raised eyebrow, not taking his eyes off of the book in front of him._

_Ayane had done a double take when Naruto had asked the question. She knew that that question was essentially the Shinigami. It would send her down a series of questions that she didn't want to answer, so naturally her response was, "I don't think it is any of your business whose affections I chose to ignore."_

_Naruto shrugged, he had actually prepared for this day for a long time since it rubbed him the wrong way every since he met them. So naturally he had taken the time to plan out any possible responses she could possibly give him, and he would give a counter response. "Well is there a reason you dislike him?" he questioned, essentially throwing the same question right back at her in a different context, much to her annoyance._

_Ayane frowned realizing that Naruto's mind was made up on having this conversation. Sure she could walk out of the house, but it would only postpone the inevitable conversation he would bring up, and she doubted he cared if he brought it up in front of Takeshi or not. "Naruto you should know better then anyone the reasons why I don't like him. He annoys me, constantly seeking my affection. It leads to him embarrassing me in front our class, and Naruto even you must realize that despite how dumb he acts, he is a total nerd. Whenever he is not dead set on annoying me, he is off tinkering with inventions that will likely never amount to anything or reading books on practical ninja techniques that have no actual uses in combat."_

_Naruto held back a flinch at her tone. She had given a rather harsh, but accurate depiction of his friend's life style. However it was all perfectly fine, because he had a response to her annoyances and it was really simple. "Then why did you take the time to ask me out to have ramen with you last week?"_

_Ayane paled, she was a smart girl and she instantly knew where he was going with that statement._

_"You say you don't like him because he is a nerd? Practicing things that have no practical use? Always having his nose in a book when he is not with you? That is what I do all of the time. Every moment that I am not with you two, I am either at the library, or at home practicing elemental manipulation to gain elemental affinities. In essence it is a completely useless skill, and impractical alone until I actually learn some actual ninjutsu." _**'In theory...'** _he added to himself as an after thought. He in truth had found numerous applications of his affinities in combat, but she didn't need to know that._

_Naruto ran a hand through his hair as the girl before him began looking at her feet, "You are being an idiot. Takeshi would do his best to give you the world if you asked for it, he even got a job because he wanted to start making his own way in the world, even though he has his future lined up for him through the academy."_

_"I have no qualms breaking this down right before you in your face bec-"_

_He was cut off by a seething Ayane, "Because your a fucking asshole!" She yelled at him giving him a questioning gaze._

_Naruto sighed, "Yes Ayane I'm a asshole, I am not liked by people, as to why you and Takeshi do is a mystery to me. I care about you both, but I cannot stand every day watching you treat him like he is a immature fool, when you yourself are being a complete hypocrite. You push away the people who get close to you, I have seen how you act with you family. You keep yourself in some pathetic excuse of a shell so you don't have to get hurt by the people around you. You take out your frustration on the one kid in the entire village that willingly puts up with you abuse just so he can make you happy. That is pathetic, if I had someone like that... I would cherish them."_

_Ayane didn't say anything, she merely took a couple steps back unwilling to continue the conversation any further. She had left house moments later, and this would be the last time she stopped by Naruto's house or even made conversation with him for a good three months._

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People feel that the strengths and powers make the characters of a story. That their feats make stories characters amazing. They would be wrong, its not the strengths and feats that make the characters, its the blemishes that make the characters.

Now while Naruto and Ayane went through some tough times, having a strong friendship that developed since the beginning that was nearly shattered in a single conversation, Takeshi was the opposite. Their friendship only strengthened.

Flashback:

_"My Mother fucking killed my father Naruto! Then she fled the village. Is that what you wanted to hear?" yelled an Irate Takeshi whom had tears in his eyes. The boys had been arguing for a good hour now, no longer having a designated topic to argue about, just ripping each other apart for the purpose of it._

_Naruto did his best to look unaffected by the statement, however he did feel a twinge of pain for his friend. Was this argument really worth it?_

_"I hated you when we met. You were everything I wasn't. You were skilled, and knowledgeable in everything there was about being a ninja. You could impress Ayane in areas that I could never measure up in, no matter how hard I tried. She would look at you in ways that I could only wish she would look at me like that. I got mad, I got jealous, I even asked Ayane's mother for advice. You know what she said?"_

_Naruto could guess, but he knew this was one of those statements where he wasn't supposed to say anything and let his friend carry on as he let the information sink in._

_"She said that I should give you a chance. That I should come to understand you? So I tried. Imagine when I found someone that I felt that I could understand. Someone that could possibly share similar hardships as me. Such as losing your parents due to something that is completely out of your control, and you don't know why. Then going through life trying your very best to fill in those voids with the people around you, yet they can never be filled. You can't even play dumb with me or try to deflect like you usually do. I see how you look at Rin, the Hokage, even the owners of Ichiraku Ramen. They aren't your fucking friends, they are the closest thing to family besides me and Ayane that you got."_

_Naruto grit his teeth at the fact that here was one of his best friends, the one who was often considered the weakest of the trio of friends he had made including himself, just utterly dissect his daily life as if he was reading a book. It was embarrassing enough when Rin took time out of her day to dissect his social flaws, he didn't need one of his best friends doing it. "It is easy for you to say, you have gained another family, whilst I'm still on my own."_

_Takeshi actually laughed, "Don't cut that bullshit with me. Replaced my family? You can't fucking replace family no matter how hard you try. Ayane's mom is never going to be my mother!-"_

_Naruto couldn't hold back his quick comment "In law on the other hand..." Naruto mumbled just loud enough for Takeshi to flush crimson in embarrassment rather then anger._

_"She is never going to be my actually mother no matter how hard I try. Just Ayane's father will never be a real replacement for my own. You can give me the whole 'It is better to have felt love and lost it rather then to never feel love at all.' but Naruto that is bullshit. You can say that, but you will never have to experience that. At this point I honestly wish every day that I could trade places with you, you have Ayane's attention, you never had to experience losing your family. The difference is that you have people that love you, the core people in your life have never betrayed you. However the most influential people in my life and in my growth as a child deserted me."_

_Takeshi took a deep breath, "So this past year I tried to be more like you, in order to try and gain those things in my life that you had. Be it that supplement for family? The more then friendly affections of a girl? The feeling that you can honestly say that when you walk into a house, you can say 'I'm Home'?"_

_Takeshi pinched his nose as he started backing up from Naruto ready to exit the immediate area, "But now, I can think of nothing worse than being you. You think you situation is bad? Look around Naruto! There are people out there that are just as fucked up as you if not more so. My dad used to tell me 'Life is an interesting journey, 'cause you never know where it will take you. Through peaks and valleys? Twists and turns? Life is something that you need to take one step at a time, and not look back. You need to be thankful for the life you have, stop looking at what you Aint got, and start looking at what you do got.' Now the problem is I have tried to live my life like this. However to see a kid that I feel has everything, act as if he has nothing? It's pathetic."_

_Takeshi grit his teeth as Naruto just stood there looking at him with a glare. Sure he may of been a bit of a hypocrite quoting his dad. It didn't stop him from being bitter about the situation. However he was certainly surprised when he heard Naruto speak, "Your right..."_

_Takeshi's head sprung up to look at Naruto who was currently looking away._

_"I have been looking at what my life has been lacking and I have forgotten about the things I have gained in this past year. So I'm sorry for this..." Naruto paused pursing his lips, he had never really given an apology before. Luckily Takeshi didn't intend to hang it over his head._

_"Forget it... its sorted." Takeshi took a deep breath, "I am likely overreacting on the situation personally... probably because of Ayane." he rationalized with a frown on his face as he thought of the supposed girl of his dreams strictly crushing on his best friend._

_Naruto frowned but said calmly, "I actually have some things I need to do... so..."_

_Takeshi looked up, broken from his thoughts. He didn't need to be told twice, and promptly headed out._

_The truth was Naruto didn't have anything to do, he just felt that he needed some time alone for once to just think about his current position in life. It was a bit pathetic in Naruto's opinion where he considered himself smarter than his friend in nearly every way, yet he was the one that was imparting wisdom. Naruto knew if he honestly did look on his life at what he had, and what he didn't. He knew that in his opinion what he had far outweighed what he didn't. Sure he had questions about his past, but what orphan didn't? He was an orphan and to his knowledge he was a completely blank slate, unless there was something bad his parents did that he didn't know about. Any problems say with the people in town not liking him, or his teachers not liking him? He shouldn't of become such a problem around town pulling his pranks. It was his own fault that he became notorious, his reputation tarnished his early years. He had nothing and no one to blame but himself._

_That was the day Naruto decided to turn his life around, firstly by talking to Ayane and telling her to pay more attention to Takeshi, he deserved it by now._

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**Time Skip: 1 day**

Yep if Naruto wanted to look back on the past of the two friends he had created during the academy, it was safe to say that they went through a lot of hardships. They were usually inflicted on the group because of Naruto. However his actions strengthened the trio. Standing before the Hokage, he could honestly say that he had never seen a trio of ninja that looked that strong together just as they were made. Perhaps it was the nature of their graduation, all of them opting to graduate at the same time, and requesting to get on the same team? Or perhaps it was the trust and faith they had in one another. Sarutobi knew as he looked over the trio of young kids before him that they were truly no longer kids, but young shinobi.

He was slightly against the prospect of this teams first mission being a C-rank. However through the nature of their graduation, and the time they had spent together, they already had the teamwork. They just needed the on the field experience. As such on the request of their sensei he gave them a tiny C-rank mission. One that he knew their leader could do with their eyes closed.

Little did he know that he had just sent a fresh genin cell on a mission to a place that was just about to break out in civil war. It was unfortunate that in the world of shinobi, nothing was ever what it seemed.

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(Currently unbeta'd will be posting the version I have gone over in the morning. Already pissed that I am 47 minutes late for what I felt was a personal deadline for this chapter XD...)

Anyways I am very unhappy with how this chapter turned out, and this is why I decided to make a new story rather then work on previous ones, so I didn't have to post this type of stuff. I feel that Takeshi's flashback was very bad. When I was writing it, I had a big picture in my head, but I realized in order to tie it together and shorten it into a chapter where you could see into his character, I had to change his background.

I felt Ayane's part was actually pretty good...

I wanted to take a crack at giving a small narrative as if you were more so reading the thoughts of someone writing a story, rather then reading the story itself. Sort of a test drive, doubt I will do it again despite it being fun. So that was mainly at the start of the chapter.

I don't know worried about how this chapter would be received. Both of the OCs still need a lot of development behind their belts. I just hope that I didn't make the characters a turn off with this chapter (This is more directed at Takeshi, since I felt I did poorly with his segment where as with Ayane I knew exactly where I was going with her.

Don't worry the story isn't going to turn into a situation where it follows the OCs, not in the slightest. In fact, you can expect to see a lot of Naruto in the coming chapters, as well as some friendly faces.

I am contemplating also introducing the third and final OC in this first part of the prologue, so I don't know.

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As a final note, the ending wasn't rushed. I actually just wanted to keep you in the dark with who is the sensei, where the mission is headed etc etc etc.

You all are welcome to guess though.


	5. This Is War

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

**This chapter hasn't been beta'd, it is just reposted because I have gotten a few messages from people saying that they aren't able to see chapter 5 for some reason.**

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Naruto sighed as he made his way down the muddy roads into uncharted territory. Now don't get him wrong, he wanted to be a genin. He just didn't realize the shit he would need to deal with once he became a shinobi, more specifically his team. "Will you two shut up and focus on the mission?" Naruto said bitterly as he turned his head back only slightly to spot an annoyed Ayane and Takeshi.

They weren't the only ones he was annoyed with, his sensei was being less than forthcoming with any sort of information in relation to the mission. She also wouldn't tell him teammates to shut up, so he had to do it himself, countless times over their trip so far.

He didn't care about his friends talking... on their own time. However being in territory of a country they were not allied with only to make a lot of noise over a crush? That was definitely not at the top of Naruto's lists on ways to die.

Naruto and his teammates weren't on the best of terms, and he knew this. After his encounters with the two of them after the past couple years completely strained their friendships. He could distinctly remember first telling his sensei about it.

Flashback:

_Naruto was sitting on a large boulder outside a gated training ground with his head in his hand as he massaged his temples._

_"I don't get it. It isn't my fault that both Ayane and Takeshi opt to act like ignorant fools half of the time." Naruto said bitterly as he continued a conversation about his relationship with his friends._

_The female who had situated herself on her personal throne made by her own earth jutsu. She was picked her teeth with her pinky finger before looking at it and flicking it anything on her fingers away. Naruto probably would have been slightly annoyed at the woman's uninterested attitude if he actually cared heavily about the subject. However much to his displeasure, the woman had forced him to talk to her about this after seeing how he was interacting with his friends... or should he say lack of interacting._

_"Well I distinctly remember a young kid who ran around the town pulling pranks on people, some quite cruel, all the while proclaiming to the world that he was going to be Hokage some day. Hmmm... not ignorant in the slightest." The woman said still appearing uninterested._

_Naruto grit his teeth at that statement, he was four or five when he was doing that. How is that even remotely relevant today?_

_"Perhaps you expect to much Naruto?" The woman questioned, "You expect those around you to be mature, and you hold your friends to a higher level of expectations. However they, like you are still children. Just because you grew up in circumstances that forced you to grow out of your childhood quickly doesn't mean that everyone else went through the same experience. So when they try to interact with you, you are just irrationally cold to them without giving them a reason why."_

_Naruto closed his eyes and took a deep breath, he didn't want to admit it, even if he knew her statement was at least partially true. However instead of choosing to admit it, he did what he had grown to doing best... deflecting. "That's nice, really. I am getting relationship advice from someone who sleeps around and is completely likely to be the most least liked person in Konoha right behind me? Yeah, you much know a lot about relationships Anko-sensei." Naruto said distastefully annoyed at the fact that she had been able to pinpoint his problem so easily._

_Anko narrowed her eyes and stood up, "I will see you at class tomorrow Uzumaki." she said in a near growl._

_Naruto knew she was angry by her tone, but he didn't care. She wanted to have this talk. Yet now realizing what he was doing wrong he had to ask her, "So what can I do to change my situation with my friends?"_

_Anko turned around and began walking away, her throne crumbling to the ground, "Nope, no more relationship advice from one of the least liked people in Konoha."_

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Naruto quickly learned that in life he should pick his confrontations with people more carefully. He no longer chose to do or say what he felt was right, he only did things when they needed to be done. This of course had certainly pushed him back into a situation where he was at the academy more often then not. If he was honest with himself, he would admit that he actually missed being able to spend time with his two friends after school.

Naruto shook his head clear of his thoughts, he couldn't be thinking about all of this at his current situation. The were moving through Ame, headed straight to arguably one of the most powerful ninja in history, The Salamander Hanzo. His abilities are almost a mystery to general ninja populace. However it was said that no mortal man could ever oppose Hanzo. Proof being in him utterly wiping the floor with Konoha's Three Legendary Sannin while they were in their prime, hell he gave them the title. That was a feat that no other ninja could attest to, besides their sensei beating them in their childhood.

There were also the myths that Naruto read about that utterly fascinated him. Supposedly the man's speed was completely unmatched while on top of water. Couple that to the fact that he built his mansion on top of a lake, the man always had the battlefield advantage if anyone were ever to oppose him.

Though the whole situation had Naruto thinking. Why? Why were they, Konoha shinobi called upon for help? A man that powerful could probably police his own village, it wasn't like Ame was overly huge anyways. The thought of a person who could beat three of the strongest ninja in the world, but needing help from other countries for simple work puzzled him. A c-rank mission could of easily been given out to any of the shinobi under his command. A single jounin could handle a C-rank, perhaps even a well armed and skilled civilian could handle a c-rank. They were usually just protection or escorts. Nothing serious, and the most action one could expect to see would be an angry bandit flinging himself at shinobi, his speed paling in comparison to that of a single shinobi child.

The fact that Anko wasn't being forthcoming only annoyed him. He didn't like letting him mind wander, as it was now. If he did he started making theories, and guesses about what was going on. However making guesses without any base of information was gambling. It is rare that you would find a shinobi that gambled that would last long. The only two Naruto could gather were from random history books that he read over the years that depicted Tsunade, The Legendary Sucker and Iwa's current Kage.

The time flew by for the team as they made their way to the heart of Amegakure. It was also humbling to everyone on the team. People of Konoha... no people in general had the tendencies to make their problems appear worse then others. They will complain saying that the Kyuubi attack took out a third of Konoha's shinobi force, as well as a fourth of it's civilian population. However they don't stop to look at the world around them. Every turn they took down the road that appeared completely like a mass of metal ruins, you could see out of the corner of your eye the homeless. The people who were trying to get as much shelter as they could from an overhanging pipe. Seven children trying their best to split a hardened loaf of bread? Konoha didn't have anything like that. To Naruto it almost made him looking back on his life growing up, how he complained? He couldn't help but feel how insignificant it was in the big scheme of things. 'I may have been disliked, but I had a roof and four walls.'

They soon were upon the the gates of Amegakure, and in an instant several shinobi were upon them. It certainly startled the genin, some more than others.

"Wha- Watch where you point that!" yelled Takeshi as he batted away one of the Amegakure shinobi's blades that were pointed at the group. Anko however appeared completely calm at the situation, like she expected it to happen.

"It's alright Takeshi, this is just their security measure..." She said slowly as she reached into the breast of her fishnet, which caused several shinobi to tense and aim their blades in her general direction. However upon her pulling out a sheet of paper that she calmly handed to the shinobi closest to her, everyone appeared to settle.

The guards had promptly given back the paper, which was most likely the mission, to Anko. After that they made their way through the gates with a thoroughly annoyed couple team members.

"Hey is it just me or did we narrowly just escape with our lives?" Takeshi questioned everyone of the group in a tone that told everyone that he was trying to lighten the mood.

Naruto was about to give some sarcastic remark, but Anko spoke up before hand, "It is actually common practice in Amegakure. The leader Hanzo from stories is known to be quite security conscious. Ever since they wars he has trusted no one, and has in essence made his village impenetrable. No one gets in, no one gets out without going through a extensive amount of security checks."

Takeshi said the thing that was on everyone's minds when he said, "Oh yeah... that was a incredibly hard security check."

Amusement of course got plastered onto everyone's face as another squad of shinobi rained down upon them, and circled the group, "Anko Mitarashi, and her genin cell please come with us as we take you through several security measures."

Naruto arched an eyebrow at that. While Takeshi gave a frustrated sigh, and he could have swore he saw Ayane get a tick mark on her forehead at the notion of "Several" security checks. Naruto was actually rather impressed. They must have only been through the gates for mere minutes. Yet an entirely new team of shinobi rained down upon them, knowing their purpose in the village which was easily a testament to the security system of the village. Who knew how long they were being watched by the team that was now escorting them.

The were quietly guided into a relatively large building that had several shinobi in it, and smaller rooms off to the left side of the room.

"Please stand over here behind this line, and strip yourself of all weaponry that you carry on your person and please wait at the left side of the room to be escorted to be formerly searched. If you are caught with concealed weapons, you will be punished as if you were one of our own shinobi." said a man in an emotionless tone as if he was reading from a book.

Naruto was surprised that it wasn't Takeshi this time that had the idea to ask something stupid, but it was Ayane, "What exactly is the punishment?" she asked curiously. Naruto thought it was a retarded question in all honesty, was being told you would be punished not enough?

The Ame shinobi had no qualms gesturing over to the prime example of the punishment which had gone completely unnoticed to the genin until it was pointed out. There was a man over in the corner, his hands cuffed together with bloodied cloth over what they could only assume were two stumps of where his hands formerly were. The Ame shinobi calmly said, "The punishment is in essence to never be able to conceal another weapon on your person ever again."

By the time everyone had turned back to the table, much to their amusement all of Takeshi's weapons and tools were situated on the table and he was quickly making his way over to the left side of the room next to several guards. While Naruto found it amusing, he found the situation more interesting than anything. Sure Takeshi was scarred for his hands, Naruto got that. What he didn't get was all of Takeshi's rather unique tools. He had always written off the boy to be rather useless in all forms of fighting as a shinobi, being average at best between them all.

Yet... for an average shinobi, what would he know about making custom smoke bombs and explosive notes? Even some of the weapons the boy put on the table, Naruto had never seen in his life. Such as a double layered glove with air vents on the side? What could that be used for? Why did he have his own breath mask, they were only typically used by Ame shinobi due to all of the toxins in the air and their tendency for underwater battles. The one thing that impressed Naruto about the entire batch of equipment was simply, they all looked as if they made them himself.

Naruto sighed, Takeshi had since stumped him, but not wanting to hold anyone up he unstrapped his tool bag and tossed it on the table. In contrast to his team, he had no weaponry at all. His sensei was pulling out kunai from all sorts of hidden places, which naturally got Naruto thinking due to her quite revealing clothing.

Naruto made his way to Takeshi alongside Ayane, only waiting for their sensei who had since stopped pulling out concealed weapons from her person.

A woman came out the moment Anko had joined the rest of the team. She had a pretty face, but her eyes foretold a completely different message than her face. Her eyes were cold, and dead, as if an experience had since taken all of the life out of them. "Please follow me into the room." She said calmly as she made her way back into the room without looking to the team to check if they were following. She knew they were.

Upon entering, the near empty room, the only thing in front of the being a large empty table and a desk in the corner. There weren't even chairs in the room, which of course raised a few eyebrows. The woman before them that had guided them into the room just moments before had her back turned to the group and in a voice void of emotion, "Please strip."

It took everyone in the room a moment to comprehend exactly what she had just said. Although upon full comprehension, everyone's reactions varied. Anko seemed unfazed as if expecting something along the lines. Takeshi paled before looking over to Ayane and grinned. She of course caught the glance and returned a sneer back to him, before unconsciously covering her chest with her arms. Yet Naruto paused before saying, "Ummm no." he said it calmly, and forcefully which in turn caused the woman to turn around.

This action of course got the attention of his other teammates and sensei. They had just witnessed what happened to someone who was caught hiding a weapon, was he really dumb enough to think he wouldn't get caught? None of them liked the idea of going through a strip search, but it was a mission...

At least they tried to rationalize.

The woman had since narrowed her eyes at Naruto, but Naruto remained unfazed. People had glared at him all of his life, there was nothing special about hers. "Excuse me?" she asked trying to hide the mild surprise in her voice that someone would oppose the rules and regulations imposed in her own country.

Naruto however shrugged saying, "You want to strip search me? I'm telling you no. You already forced me to empty my pockets. We were asked here to come on a mission by The Salamander Hanzo himself. However if you are going to uphold ridiculously tight security standards going as far as to strip search me, then forget it, I have no qualms about going back home and training more. I am here to help your village out, because seemingly you are currently lacking the man power to do your own personal missions that you have to hire from other villages. So as I said. You want to strip search someone? Go ahead, it wont be me though. You can explain to Hanzo why the Konoha team arrived at Ame, but didn't make it past your security customs."

The woman seemingly turned as white as a ghost at the prospect of having to tell Hanzo herself as to why the Konoha team arrived but then left Ame. The woman righted herself and straightened out her clothes and took a deep breath before saying, "Yes... of course. One moment." She quickly made her way out of the woman, likely trying to get away from the tension.

Anko looked around and narrowed her eyes at the retreating woman. She caught the door before it could completely close and she turned to her team, "Come on we are going to wait outside of this room." She said a bit distastefully. There was no reason for her team to get stuck in a room, only for the possibility of several jounin class ninja to come in and beat the shit out of them while they can't escape.

Takeshi and Ayane filed out first, followed by Naruto who was stopped by Anko. She leaned down to Naruto's level to whisper in his ear, "If you ever do something stupid such as defying the people who gave us our mission, I will personally have your shinobi license revoked." she stated quietly as to not alert the other teammates. "You signed up for this, and this is a job. Sometimes you have to do things that you don't agree with or you don't like to do, but since it is your job you have to. You should remember that, and this will be going on the mission report."

Naruto scowled at that notion, "Says the woman dressed like a hooker?" Naruto said rolling his eyes. "Go ahead, tell the old man. There was no reason for us to go through a strip search after having been forced to put all of our weapons on the table in the first place. If they didn't believe us, too fucking bad. Does the country honestly expect to hire shinobi and for them to come unequipped? Fuck no."

Naruto walked away no more then two steps after shrugging out of Anko's grip before scoffing and saying, "Wait and you have the audacity of calling me out on not following the rules miss I am going to betray my village for my sensei?"

Anko stopped cold at that and stared at Naruto. Yeah... she wasn't the best person to talk about behavioral problems in the shinobi career. The fact that a student however knew enough about her past to be able to call her out on it was a bit... annoying. However at the same time it made her unnerved. The boy was an orphan with no background ninja experience, in contrast to countless of other shinobi over the years and even his teammates. Yet he was the one who carried himself the best. She had yet to seem him pause, he seemingly always knew what he wanted to do. He had to have knowledge from outdated bingo books which she could only assume he had the knowledge of the newer bingo books.

The boy to her was strange. The Hokage had told her he was worried for the child, thinking the boy may become something akin to Orochimaru? Frankly she didn't see it. Yeah the boy was calm and relaxed in the face of obvious danger, but she hadn't found anything utterly sinister about him. The boy got annoyed, he was knowledgeable, and fearless... as least seemingly so thus far. However she knew something was there, she just didn't know what it was yet.

She didn't bother to dispute his statement, she could write it down on a report. She also didn't dispute it because it was true. Everyone must be held accountable for their actions, and she made some bad choices when she was younger and she knew she would have to live with that. It wouldn't be right for her to flip on Naruto over him calling out her own mistakes.

She shook her head clear of her thoughts and ushered herself and her team into a rather open space in the room and told them to wait patiently for the woman to return.

Naturally upon Takeshi trying to spark up a conversation on the fact they had just narrowly escaped the prospect of seeing his teammates naked... well Anko told the group to wait, in silence.

A young woman made her way down the long corridor of an unknown location at a relaxed pace. Behind her a small group of shinobi followed, all of various ages. They came to a room with large double doors, at which point she held up a single hand halting the shinobi behind her as she made her way into the room.

Inside the room a shadowy figure sat a desk, his silhouette showing his head resting on his right hand in a bored expression. He trailed his finger in a circle on the arm of the chair as he had his eyes closed.

"All of the teams have gathered, and everything is in position. We are merely waiting upon your orders." The woman stated as she brushed a lock of blue hair from her face.

The man opened a single eye and turned to the woman, "We will make our move at dawn." he said before moving back to his previous actions with closed eyes. In truth he was thinking, about everything in his life. People try their best to get to their goals as fast as possible, it was something that even he insisted on doing for a long time. Yet now reflecting back on his life, he realized that it wasn't about the destination, it was about the journey.

He had gone through the twists and turns, the ups and downs throughout his life. Whether it be first becoming a shinobi with his best friends, or being forced to pick between his best friends in a situation of life and death. Yet now he was at the end of the road, the destination. Everything that he had built till now came down to the final hour.

As the woman left the room and went off to give out orders, he unlike others saw two people. The group of people who he had surrounded himself with, his shinobi, his followers. The viewed him as a strict military leader, and viewed the woman as the even stricter second in command. Yet when he saw her, he saw the young shy girl who enjoyed making origami for people as gifts.

'Its a shame...' he thought to himself with a sigh as he righted himself in his chair, 'That me and Konan have lost so much along the road.'

The man walked over to the corner of the room near a mirror and turned on a lamp right to his side which chased away the darkness in the room. He outstretched his hands in front of him and looked himself in the mirror and he couldn't help but sigh.

He was probably one of the few people in the world that could look in the mirror and see a face that was not his own. The orange unruly hair wasn't his own, the only thing he could honestly say was his own as he stayed in the mirror staring at 'himself'. His eyes, the eyes said to be the greatest dojutsu the world had ever seen. He didn't know whether to feel bitter, or proud about the fact that he couldn't lay his best friends body to rest, and that he had to carry on hi- no their dream on through him.

He sighed as he felt the presence of the blue haired woman come back into the room, and watched as she came up behind him and put her hand on his shoulder. It was comforting knowing that there were still people that cared about you, it was bad enough that he didn't feel comfortable in his own skin, he needed someone to be there for him. Especially with the events that were soon going to unfold.

"Nagato, you should get ready." She said quietly as she gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze.

'Nagato' he frowned as he thought over what she just said. It was more 'Nagato trapped inside Yahiko's body forever more.' He gave a weak nod to her as he looked over her shoulder to stare the blue haired, gray eyed woman.

He wasn't scared of the events to come, far from it. He was more than confident in his abilities. He knew that he could beat Hanzo. His dilemma wasn't the fact that he was strong, confident, or comfortable with his abilities. His dilemma was that he felt that this currently wasn't his place, that this was a position formerly held by his friend, this was his dream... and he was robbing it of him.

The Konoha team stood out a mansion that was low to the slow moving river below it. It appeared to be supported as if it was a bridge, keeping the entire house stable. They were once again being forced to remove all of their weapons before entering the premises. Although it was easier to understand with The Salamander Hanzo residing just beyond the doors in front of them.

Once they had removed their weapons, they cautiously walked inside. It was unnerving enough for most to be in close proximity with their own Hokage, of course it was slightly unnerving knowing that you resided in the room with someone that powerful. Even more so knowing that the man could snap your neck in an instant for not liking the idea of their team not following their village's protocol.

They made their way into the mansion cautiously, Naruto at the rear of the group. Naruto looked around the mansion taking in his surroundings. At first glance you would think that the man had an extremely weird sense of style when it came to furniture. Yet upon giving it some thought, he realized just how tailored this place was to Hanzo's strengths. There is the constant argument of fighting shinobi on their home turf is always dangerous, simply because they have the home field advantage and they know how everything works and where everything is.

Well those examples he heard about? They paled in comparison to this place. Hanzo had the floors, not your typical everyday thing. No these floors looked like they came straight from some metal working factory. The floors were two grated layers that crossed each other. It made little holes in the floor no bigger then some holes on a shower head, or holes in a drinking straw. Below them, you could clearly see the flowing river the house resided on.

Every wall in the house had a torch hanging from them. There were guards stationed at every corner of the house, shirtless yet armed. It certainly stumped the group, the prospect of someone being so anal about having weapons left at the door, and yet he has shinobi guards with them in his own home? That was until the group paid actual attention to the shirtless men and women, the females with the bare minimum of clothing covering their chests. Each one of them had a tattoo, by the looks of it from any commoner, yet from a shinobi's eyes it was obvious. Seals. They each had a single seal over each of the typical instant killing blow areas that shinobi learn of in the academy.

The one thing that interested Naruto was the seals in itself. They looked like storing seals, like the ones you would see on a storage scroll. Yet there was something slightly off about them, but he couldn't place his finger on it.

They walked into a modest sized room, and in the room knelt down over a table was a man of the history books. His blonde hair down his back, covered at the top by a helmet and an over sized breath mask. He had the standard Ame flak jacket, with only a couple visible differences on it.

As they walked into the room, looking over the man who was hunched over a large map with a bunch of tiny miniatures on it. Since the man had yet to speak, Naruto continued to examine his attire. The jacket had a bulge on the left side of his chest, which likely was some kind of metal protecting his heart. His jacket also had several seals littered around it. Naruto knew a bit about seals, but not enough to be able to know what a large mass of them meant all together.

It took a moment for the man before them to acknowledge their presence, but soon enough he spoke with his reverberated raspy voice, "I assume you are the Konoha team." he said as he continued looking at the table before him, running a finger down the scar on his cheek.

Anko gave a silent nod followed by a "Yes sir."

Hanzo's tiny pupils continued to analyze the playing field before him as he said, "So you are the team that ignored our villages security protocol?" he said calmly, however there was an underlying tone that promised significant injury in the future should he be displeased.

Anko paused and mulled over choosing her words very carefully. There was only one problem with that plan, she was still dealing with a confident child on their first mission who thought his intelligence could carry him through encounters without experience.

"That would be my fault." Naruto paused to gauge the man's reaction, which was merely him stopping what he was doing to look up at Naruto, "I didn't feel it was necessary for-" he was cut off by Anko whom put a hand over his mouth and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"My apol-" it was Anko's turn to be cut off as Hanzo was up in an instant, far quicker than any of the genin could catch, and appeared with his hand over her mouth staring at her intently. Hanzo grabbed the wrist of her hand that was currently over Naruto's mouth, and rather forcefully pulled it free.

Hanzo moved to sit back down saying, "I will not tolerate disrespect in my own home, you shall not interrupt anyone, you shall wait your turn before speaking." the statement was obviously directed to Anko. Yet everyone else in the room was now pale as a ghost.

Seeing the speed at which Hanzo was upon Anko certainly brought everyone back down to earth, and knocked Naruto off his high horse. The concept that the man truly could kill them before they even saw anything certainly scared them.

Naruto now took a rule out of Anko's book and started to thinking over what he was going to say, yet Hanzo was going to have none of that. Hanzo waved his hand in the air in the direction Naruto was standing, "Don't stop now and think about what the hell you were going to say, say what you wanted to boy."

Naruto pursed his lips and looked at his team, Anko was glaring down at him and both Ayane and Takeshi were doing their best to stand at attention while casting sideways glances at Naruto, obviously not wanting to get on Hanzo's bad side. Something that he was doing quite the job of getting on it would seem. Hanzo saying, "Now..." certainly brought Naruto out of his thoughts.

Naruto took a deep breath before saying, "I felt that it was unnecessary for us to go through a strip search after we already dropped all of our weapons on the table. Yet on top of that, I felt that it was retarded when you specifically hired us to come help you with something." Naruto instantly knew what 'retarded' was not the best word to use seeing as how Hanzo instantly narrowed his eyes upon hearing it. Luckily the man stayed calm.

Hanzo stood up towering over the people in the room, besides Anko whom he was only four or so inches taller then. He looked down on all of them before saying, "Hmm... be thankful that you remind me of one of my former shinobi." he stated calmly as he examined the team, "Otherwise your head would have been in the river by now."

That statement caused Naruto to pale considerably. He felt he was strong, and could kick the ass of anyone his age who spoke to him like that. Yet he knew he was no where near the level of a S-class ninja.

Hanzo then motioned for the shinobi to walk with him, in which the group followed behind him and he stopped, "No, walk in front of me." He stated calmly. Naruto could only be slightly surprised by how security conscious the man was, it was as if he felt he always needed to be looking over his shoulder.

"So you are the Snake Sannin's former apprentice correct?" Hanzo said at the group continued making their way out of the house.

Anko didn't answer, she merely nodded. She didn't like the idea of acknowledging certain aspects of her past, her sensei was one of them.

Hanzo nodded his head when he heard that, "Good. Then your mission should be simple." he said with a hint of amusement in his voice, which seemed out of place on his person. "All I need for you to do is protect a caravan that will be leaving the village tomorrow just before dawn, no matter the costs."

Naruto didn't like the sound of the final statement. Yet in front of Hanzo... it wasn't like he had the option to argue it.

The team left after getting some general directions of where to go from Hanzo. Hanzo continued to look at the teams retreating form, or more so the young blonde boy in interest.

'He is a lot like him.' he thought with a raised eyebrow. 'Perhaps he should stick around for tomorrow...' he thought as he turned and made his way back into his house to look over the table once again, but not before quickly grabbing a new piece off of a shelf in the room and placing it on the playing field.

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Sorry about the wait, went through some computer trouble this week and frankly this chapter was just quite a bit boring to write. Some scenes I just felt needed to be done to develop Hanzo's character and his country, as such I didn't really get to expand on characters such as Anko or the OCs unfortunately.

Anyways I hope you guys like how I have made Hanzo thus far. Or the mental dilemma with Nagato. I know I am having Naruto act kinda brat like, but frankly. He is still 8 and hasn't had the guidance of shinobi parents and he isn't the biggest people person. So while I feel he is being a bit brat like or whatever, he is also a kid, a skilled kid, but a kid none the less. That however may change in the coming chapters lol :).

I think I may introduce the final OC in the next chapter. This is all relevant to home much I feel I should drag out this mission.

I will be very straight forward right now though to quench any QQ that may come sooner of later this this mission. I strictly want to use this mission to develop Naruto's character and perhaps the OC that will be introduced slightly. So no QQ about Takeshi and Ayane not being expanded on. Same goes for Anko.

Anyways as I usually do, I leave a question or request that is up for anyone to answer at the end.

Possible spoiler if you didn't catch it in this chapter...

**Anyways this is more for the fans than anything. I will be writing a pretty intense battle between a couple of insanely strong shinobi. So I am merely offering anyone who wants to get creative with abilities to go for it.**

**I am looking for (more specifically at least) Fire and Water jutsus. Custom ones that you yourselves have made, I can look through the wiki for ones in the manga. Also if anyone has any ideas for sophisticated traps, I am all ears.**

**If I end up using the jutsu you post, I will give you credit at the bottom of the chapter.**

**x**

**(Not yet beta'd, beta'd file got corrupted.)  
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	6. How did all of this happen?

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

(This is a tiny thing I wanted to post at the top btw.)

If you are going to leave a review and be rather rude, but still providing criticism about my story. Fine I can handle that. However if you are going to make comments about my story and then make it impossible for me to PM you with at least my reasoning for my actions, then that is not only cowardly but childish. I just wanted to throw that out there after I read some reviews by some insomniac.

This chapter also took longer then I anticipated, and I rewrote this I think 3-4 times. My reasons will be at the end of the chapter. Hope you have a good read.

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Naruto sighed as he stretched his legs and arms after waking up. He knew it had to be around five-thirty. Last night he slept in a tent large enough for two... possibly three cramped people. Although wasn't the best sleep he had ever gotten, with a storm came in the middle of the night which woke him up after it started beating on his tent. He could only be thankful that he had chosen to build a man made hill to set his tent up on so that the ground he was sleeping on didn't become wet. He doubt he could say the same for his teammates whom probably foolishly built on flat ground, and woke up with a wet bed.

He massaged his hands gently, trying to warm them up. Just because he was dry, didn't mean the air didn't seemed cold as ice. He gathered up his things in the tent, which wasn't a whole lot, at a relaxed pace. He carried the bare minimum of ninja tools. He knew it was because of what he relied on thus far as a shinobi. The typical genin would rely on their weapons, not by choice, but because of their lack of ninjutsu and chakra supply. So you see countless genin running around with abundances of kunai, shurikan, even taking steps to get more advanced versions such as the Fuma shurikan.

Naruto wasn't like that, he had studied years to gain elemental affinities. Sure, he may not know any jutsus for those affinities yet, but that didn't mean that he couldn't manipulate the chakra at all. He could sharpen a kunai to split a sword in half, he could glide upon water. Just because he didn't have a jutsu arsenal did not mean that his abilities at present time were useless. No instead, he felt that they put him in a league far above anyone he had encountered in the academy thus far.

Naruto scowled at that notion, it was just in the academy. Hanzo had moved at speeds faster then his own eye could catch, he could have literally ripped him apart piece by piece before he even noticed what happened. He learned yesterday that he was overconfident, and that he felt no one could touch him.

Naruto grit his teeth and pinched the bridge of his nose, 'Fucking news flash Naruto, you are just the big fish of the pond, but an utterly small fish of the ocean.'

Once Naruto gathered his things he stepped out of the tent. It was merely sprinkling outside, he could barely feel it. It was as if the moment it touched his skin, it evaporated. The air was extremely humid, and he almost felt like he was walking through a thick wet fog as he walked through the clear camp grounds.

There were a good fifteen to twenty tents laying around scattered across a small clearing in a forest just outside of the walls of Ame. His team had gotten there an hour or two after their encounter with Hanzo. Upon arriving, they found out that they were protecting several, quite rich, families. That fact of course wouldn't have been that odd, and escort is an escort. The odd thing about it was that when they arrived, there were already several shinobi of Ame already there, prepared to travel with the caravan the next day.

Now, what caravan needs eight shinobi guarding it? Five of them being chunin-jounin rank. That didn't make any sense to Naruto. What was so important about these people that they needed to be so heavily guarded?

Naruto looked around the camp momentarily to see if anyone else was up. After glancing around, he wasn't very surprised to see two of the Ame shinobi standing up, at opposite corners of the area presumably keeping watch. What did surprise him was Takeshi was up, and taking down his tent, and he appeared completely ready to go in his shinobi gear.

The boy's gear had always caused Naruto to raise an eyebrow, it was just... odd. At first glance it appeared as if it was a standard shinobi vest, with some baggy pants. Nothing wrong with that. However when you look closer and realize that the large black vest that he had over a dark green shirt had at least 10 more pockets than standard issue, some even looking as if he made them himself and you couldn't help but wonder what they were all for. His pants followed similar principles, the boy seemingly had several different pairs of camouflage. He was currently wearing one that blended in well with the surroundings, dark greens and browns. The pants had at least six pockets on them that were beyond standard issue. For example the ankle, a completely useless place to have a pocket? One was there. Right above the ankle pocket was another long, rather slim pocket that looked as if he made it himself.

It made him wish he paid more attention to what Takeshi had emptied from his pockets before the attempted strip search. He walked over to the boy, expecting his things to be wet, he set up his tent right below a downhill slope. Yet his friend surprised him. When he removed his folded tent from the pile, he found that he had used bamboo to not get wet. The corners of his tent area, he irrigated the spot with bamboo, and redirected in a flow down away from where he was sleeping. Naruto idly wondered if it was faster then digging up a big earth mound without jutsu. Regardless, he found that his friend wasn't as incapable as he thought...

"Whats up Naruto?" Takeshi asked as he continued stuffing various objects into a back pack. Naruto couldn't understand what at least half of them were used for.

Naruto was mildly surprised by Takeshi addressing him, with his back turned, he was at least ten feet away and hadn't said anything yet.

Takeshi turned his head over his shoulder to Naruto with a raised eyebrow, "You need something Naruto?" he questioned, "I saw you come out of your tent, and since you are the only one up besides the shinobi in the corners of the clearing I imagined it was you." he said trying to answer any unspoken question Naruto had.

Naruto paused, and didn't say anything before he walked over and crouched down next to Takeshi, "Ummm no..." Naruto said calmly, finally answering the question. He looked down at all of the various tools that Takeshi was packing away or putting on his person. It was interesting... at least slightly. He had written off Takeshi as an idiot, likely due to some of Ayane's influence, but at the same time he had all of these random tools and gadgets that he hadn't seen before, and knew they weren't sold in stores. So the question Naruto came to was simple, 'did the person I always wrote off as an idiot make all of these things himself?'

Naruto picked up a single object, that looked highly similar to a smoke bomb, before it was plucked out of his hands by two of Takeshi's fingers. Naruto rolled his eyes at that, he could spend his time reading up on different ways to apply his current elemental manipulations rather then wonder what all of the tools were. Especially if they were going to be taken out of his hands before he could get a good look at them.

As Naruto began walking off, Takeshi called out to Naruto as he finished packing up his things, "That bomb you picked up was full of insecticide." he said with a grin as he rubbed the back of his head. "I made it since well... we have the Aburame in Konoha, what is to say there aren't other clans out there that use other types of bugs?" he finished his statement sheepishly.

Naruto didn't say anything, as he was focused on the sheepish grin on the boy's face as he addressed Naruto while rubbing the back of his head. Naruto held back a scowl as he looked at Takeshi, before quickly nodding and walking away.

Naruto closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he got back to his tent site, and snatched a book in frustration. To say Naruto was annoyed now though would be an understatement. Although, Takeshi didn't do anything to make Naruto annoyed on purpose, Naruto was annoyed with Takeshi because the boy reminded him of how he used to be.

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Anko rapidly juggled a kunai in her right hand in succession, flipping and spinning it in mid air as she sighed. To say she felt there was something off about this mission and they she was worried would be an understatement. She rarely ever got worried, because often times she could completely calculate the situation. She was a ninja, but she was more then that, she was a top of the line assassin. Any ninja could say they were a killer, sure. They would likely be telling the truth. However few would say they were truly an assassin.

There were the Taijutsu specialists like Maito Gai, with skill in taijutsu that even surpassed that of the current Hokage. There were the ninjutsu specialists such as Hatake Kakashi, whom knew over 1000 ninjutsu. Some shinobi fell into more intricate areas of expertise such as Genjutsu like Yuhi Kurenai. Some practiced Kenjutsu, while others walked a darker road such as interrogation like Morino Ibiki. Yet what all of these shinobi have in common is something that Anko does not.

They all specialize in something that is different from the norm. Anko didn't choose to be good in ninjutsu or taijutsu. She was a killer, by all means. Since she was abandon by her former sensei her assassination mission count was an eight percent majority alongside a hundred percent completion rate. She didn't fail, and she had in essence become one of Konoha's true lone wolves. She did her assassinations all by herself. Her entire shinobi training and even her life style had grown to revolve around what she was best at. Whether is be the smallest yet most poisonous of snakes to crawl through a tiny hole in a wall to give a deadly bite to an unsuspecting individual, or her own expertise in poisons. Being able to weave the deadliest of poisons in the world only comparable to the skill of her former sensei and Suna's deadliest puppet masters.

Anything around her she could turn into a deadly weapon, whether it be a rock? A chop stick? Even a dango skewer she was able to turn into a deadly weapon that she could utilize to kill someone in at least six different ways. Her lifestyle had changed into her own personal training... fun training. Seduction, sure the villagers may hate her, but it wasn't like they didn't already before. Of course... the fact that she slept with countless husbands and broke up countless marriages was probably a pretty bad tag to add next to "Orochimaru's Apprentice - Home Wrecker."

It wasn't her fault though, she had grown into an irresistible kunoichi. If there was ever a mission that involved seducing a target and a kunoichi failed? She could go and succeed. She could get men wrapped around her finger in a glance if she wanted to, and have them eating out of the palm of her hand until she cut them loose.

Although... despite all of these facts about how well she can get one to do her every whim, she was very independent. Every mission she took, she did it alone, she didn't have to watch out for anyone. There in lies why she was worried.

She now had people to protect. It wasn't by choice that she became a team leader, she was actually quite nervous about the idea to be honest. She thought it could be fun, but after her encounter with Naruto... well it really took a shit all over her parade about the idea. She knew she could protect herself, and she was virtually unbeatable by nearly anyone. Worst case scenario she would have to run away, and who would really be able to chase someone while fending off countless poison senbon and kunai while dodging giant overgrown snakes? Not many.

She could watch her own back, that was for sure. She had been doing so since she was a child. The real question was would she be able to watch the back of her three students? She knew there was definitely something wrong especially due to her personal encounter with Hanzo about thirty minutes after their departure.

_Flashback:_

_The team hadn't stopped for a break since they arrived in Ame. Couple that with the numerous searches and nearly being torn to shreds in Hanzo's own household. They needed a drink. They were lucky enough to find that the river Hanzo's place sat upon ran right in front of their path to their designated mission meeting grounds._

_Each member of the team took their time going to get water, and soon enough it was Anko's turn. She leisurely made her way down to the river, losing her line of sight with her team which wasn't a big deal. There was no immediate danger in the area, and she was still within earshot if anything started to happen._

_She dipped her hand into the water, only for her heart to skip a beat at what happened. A hand had grasped onto hers and someone was near instantly materializing out of the water before her. Anko stuck out with a hidden kunai only for her wrist to be caught before the kunai was even close to making contact. She didn't need to strike again, as before her holding her wrist was Hanzo._

_"Your a... jumpy one." He said with a raised eyebrow as he took a step back before looking around the area carefully and scanning for threats. Anko could only scowl at his statement._

_"You would be jumpy too if someone decided to grasp onto your hand and suddenly get in your face when before they were no where in sight." Anko huffed and crossed her arms over her chest after she tucked her kunai away._

_"I suppose you may be right Mitarashi-san. However that is not why I have come. I have merely come to tell you the extended part of the mission specifically for you." Hanzo began which in turn cause Anko to raise an eyebrow._

_"What do you mean ext-" she stopped the moment Hanzo held up his hand for silence._

_"Don't speak. I specifically requested you from the Hokage for quite a substantial sum for this specific reason. You possess the snake summoning contract. Now your job is simple, you are to escort this caravan. However on top of that I expect for you to utilize your snakes once you are a safe distance away from Ame to carry the caravan out of the country. In particular, I request that you utilize Manda for this job as well."_

_Anko looked on in surprise at what she had just been told, "Wait I thought this was a caravan, a c-rank mission? What the hell do you mean "a safe distance" is there a particular force that I should be worried about? You know as well as I do that lying about a shinobi mission rank is a great offense!" her questions came out in a rapid succession that left her out of breath._

_Hanzo stared at her intently, "Yes I do Mitarashi-san." Hanzo began in a condescending tone, "That is why I personally took the liberty of going directly over you Hokage's head. I requested the mission through your conformist of a Daimyo. I merely told him I had an escort mission for him and personally requested Mitarashi Anko. I finished by merely attaching a large sum of money to the mission and your Daimyo that is completely ignorant to how the shinobi world worked went directly over your Hokage's head and registered this mission specifically for you, or should I say your unique talents."_

_Anko's scowl only served to grow deeper as she listened to the man before her talked until she snapped as he finished. "Who the fuck do you think you are?" Anko spat out in frustration, trying to do so quietly as to not alert her team._

_In speeds that not even Anko could see clearly, Hanzo had her by the neck and slammed her to the ground. "Who the fuck do you think you are you ignorant child?" Hanzo questioned venomously._

Anko squinted a single eye in pain an grit her teeth as she looked up at the man that clearly outclassed her, but did her best to appear confident. She grinned despite her sore back and gave out a quiet laugh, "What are you going to do kill me? That defeats the purpose of having me here now doesn't it? So what is stopping me from just leaving?"

_Hanzo could barely contain his smirk, "Your young little team that are playing shinobi."_

_Anko scowled at the way he addressed her team and did her best to bluff, "And so what? I have barely even met those maggots, you don't think I wont leave?"_

_"No Mitarashi-san, I know you wont leave. Simply because if you leave, I will undoubtedly know you left. You do not want to make an enemy out of me. Secondly, I will send home the kids bodies in multiple bags, half to your Hokage, half to your Daiymo and tell them that you abandon your mission," Hanzo said with confidence before holding up a hand to stop any possible retort. "You can say that there is no way they will believe me, but in all honesty and you know this. There is no way they would believe you. The former village traitor who has established such a... impressive reputation around the village for her proper conduct. Or a war veteran that has shared mutual benefits with Konoha since before you were born? Your past shows that you aren't against betraying your home, and killing the poor little Kyuubi jinchuriki would certainly fall under that."_

_Anko had since paled considerably at that. Hanzo tinkered momentarily with his reverberating breath mask before speaking once again no longer looking at Anko, "Now sure they may not care about you killing the young girl with a former Iwa shinobi as a parent. Or the orphan boy whom moved in with her. Yet, killing the Kyuubi jinchuriki, a boy who has more potential then the world has likely ever seen when you couple him being a container with the boy's late, but obvious parent."_

_Anko looked mildly confused by his statement until it dawned on her, and it showed in her eyes as Hanzo gave a raspy laugh through his mouth piece. "Ahhh ignorance is bliss."_

_Hanzo stood up and let the woman go and said, "Use Manda, if you don't, I will know. There are things going on here that are far bigger than you. You just do your job, and you wont have to come back here again."_

_Anko gave a laugh, "Except for the fact I can't use Manda, one he requires a hundred human sacrifices. Two, he is Orochimaru's personal summon, there is no way he would ever agree to even remotely help me."_

_Hanzo pursed his lips at that, he had never had any troubles with his own summoning contract seeing as how he was the only one to sign it. He also didn't have any... good summoning contracts among his forces. He had hoped that the girl would have control over the summons, but he seemingly thought wrong. "I see... well then deliver a message tonight through one of your snakes to Manda. Tell him that Kimi says that the snake is a coward if he refuses to help. Hopefully he will respond, and other then that use the other big snakes in your arsenal."_

_Anko tilted her head with confusion written all over her face, clearly saying "Who the hell is Kimi?" or "Who the hell names their child 'She who is without equal' like that isn't a bit ignorant?"_

_Hanzo merely looked amused at her confusion, "Just do what you are told, that is your job. If you don't Mitarashi-san, there will be consequences. As for Kimi? Well she is the Salamander boss." Hanzo almost an instant later shattered as if someone threw a rock through a water balloon and melted back into the river. Anko on the other hand closed her eyes and took a deep breath, she had no idea what she was going to do. Not to mention the idea of using Manda scared the shit out of her, and there were very few things that scared her. Manda just happened to be one of them._

_Flashback End:_

Her only regret about the whole encounter was how much in the dark she was. She was put into a position for once where she didn't know what she should do... and it sucked.

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Naruto sighed as he heard the flap of his tent open. He was laying down on his sleeping bag with his book over his face. He had been reading for nearly an hour before he had to take a break. He was having trouble focusing in his current surroundings. What with Hanzo and the suspicious amount of Ame shinobi around the camp. Naruto moved the book off his face to see Ayane standing in the opening, seemingly letting herself into his tent.

"Yeah sure, your welcome to come in Ayane..." Naruto said as he rolled his eyes and put the book back over his face.

Ayane only sneered in response to his comment before saying, "We are likely going to get moving soon. That was all I came to tell you." She said as she massaged her shoulder and looked around his tent momentarily.

Naruto of course noticed that she hadn't left, so obviously there was more that she was here for then that, "Really? Then why are you still here?" he didn't want to come off as rude, but it was a valid question. Not to mention that unlike Takeshi, she wasn't even in her shinobi gear which only told Naruto that they in fact weren't going as soon as she said. She had some gray sweat pants on and a overly large red t-shirt. He knew that was definitely not what she fought in.

Ayane tried her best to think up an excuse as to why she was still in the room but couldn't and pulled at her hair in frustration. "Okay... I want your help with an earth jutsu."

Naruto raised an eyebrow in mild surprise. He wasn't expecting that, "What happened to your 'I hate Uzumaki Naruto' phase?" he asked in slight amusement.

Ayane sighed and made her way to exit the tent, "Never mind, your an id-"

"Ugh what do you need help with?" Naruto said cutting her off before she could leave the tent. He sat up on his sleeping bag and pinched the bridge of his nose as she turned around before him.

Ayane crossed her arms over her chest, "I need help with the earth manipulation to make the earth clone jutsu work." the frustration was evident in her voice.

Naruto frowned, "I don't know any jutsu, you understand this right?"

Ayane took a deep breath, "I know, but can you help?" she questioned expectantly.

Naruto ran a hand through his hair and thought over in his head what the basis for an earth clone would require. It would need a source, obviously. Then from that source since an Earth Clone is by no means super advanced manipulation, it would probably involve the most basic form of Earth Manipulation. While he hadn't personally practiced earth manipulation much he knew the basic ideas of it. So after quickly mulling over what he knew, he gave Ayane his response. "I can help you I guess. I don't know earth manipulation that well." he said as he frowned lightly before continuing, "I imagine the basic idea behind the Earth Clone is to gather a moderate amount of chakra and flow it through your source. Then you manipulate your chakra into a human form which the mud or rocks should cling on to. After that you would just need to follow the basic properties of a bushin... I would at least assume." he started trailing off in his head as he thought over the jutsu to himself silently.

Naruto was about to ask if she needed more information than that, at least that was until a giant explosion rocked the entire camp area. The tent they were in was battered from the outside. Mud smeared across the tent as other chunks of mud fell harmlessly to the ground near by.

Despite the obvious surprise, Naruto and Ayane both sprung into action in an instant. They were both out of the tent in seconds, and what they saw they couldn't believe. The camp site now had a large crater in the center of it. Scattered around were numerous tents, along with women and children that were wounded and crawling.

Naruto continued to observe his surroundings, trying to understand what was going on, but before he could say anything to Ayane she was off. She raced off over to a young girl whose arm was completely covered in blood, and her screams were deafening. Once the two of them got closer Naruto couldn't even hold back a wince. Her arm had an incredibly long gash going down side which was mixing with the muddy ground. Her shoulder also appeared to be dislocated, but he wasn't a doctor or a medic nin so he wasn't able to completely tell at a single glance.

Ayane quickly grabbed the girl and did her best to carry her off to the side, next to a tree.

Naruto once again choose to look around as the chaos around him began to make sense. The loud clashing of metal, the sound of raging water and explosions. They all portrayed battle, but not with whom. Yet Naruto's eyes saw everything perfectly clearly. Over half of the Ame shinobi that were "Guarding" the caravan had since started attacking the other remaining shinobi that were seemingly protecting it. Naruto could only frown at what he saw, it was a losing battle for the shinobi defending the civilians. The hostile ninja were greater in quantity and were throwing out the biggest and most destructive ninjutsu they likely had in their arsenal. Not only looking to defeat the shinobi they were facing, but to cause as much collateral damage as possible.

Naruto was about to join in on the fight until he head Ayane yell out for him to help. He could tell that she hadn't even noticed what was going on around them, having tunnel vision for the child she was trying to save. That of course was a fool's errand in his own right. The child was going to surely be dead soon, and it would take a miracle to keep her alive in her current state.

Naruto got over next to her in an instant, and decided to make himself useful by at least applying pressure to the girls wounds, not much caring for her obvious discomfort at the prospect. That of course got a glare shot at him by Ayane which he ignored.

"Help me get her shoulder back in place, and then help me wrap her shoulder." she said quickly as she began ripping her shirt apart from the bottom to the upper abdomen, and then went on to ripping her pant legs down to something akin to shorts.

Naruto didn't see the purpose in all of this, did he want for the girl to die? Of course not. Would this bandaging and setting of her shoulder change anything? Of course not. The chances of her survival were minimal at best, and all they were doing was prolonging her death.

Naruto was snapped from his thoughts as Ayane shoved his shoulder and screamed at him to help. Naturally the act got her his full attention. However it also got the attention of a few unwanted individuals.

Naruto rolled his eyes at the fact he was being yelled at over such a pointless subject, and with no regard to the girl he grabbed her arm and rather roughly set it in place. This action of course caused her to scream bloody murder, far louder then her already shaking and weeping sobs.

Ayane looked like she wanted to yell but decided not to in favor of fixing up the bloodied child before them. "Naruto give me ninja wire please." she said calmly as she wrapped the girl's arm.

Naruto rolled his eyes, but none the less dug into his ninja tool pouch since Ayane wasn't dressed in her own ninja gear. He grabbed the wheel of wire, momentarily looking down for no more than a second. Yet once he had looked back up he was quick to move.

He tossed the Ninja wire like a baseball straight forward at a charging Ame shinobi. The man deftly moved his head out of the way of the oncoming non-lethal projectile.

Ayane who was looking positively furious at Naruto for throwing the wire only grew more severe when Naruto took his muddy shinobi sandel and kicked Ayane right in the chest which caused her to stumble several feet backward. That was when she got the full picture of what was happening around her.

The shinobi struck downward with a kunai where Ayane was previously crouched down before the girl. The kunai instead of stabbing Ayane like it was originally intended stabbed Naruto directly in his upper leg which made Naruto clench his teeth in pain. Naruto tried to strike forward with his right fist, which was easily caught by the bigger and more experienced shinobi before him. The Ame ninja picked Naruto up several feet before slamming him to the ground.

The man yanked his kunai out of Naruto's leg and moved to strike down once again, and for Naruto, time slowed down.

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_Flashback:_

_"Now Naruto have you truly thought this through, with graduating the academy early?" asked the exiled Inuzuka as she sat across from Naruto in the library as the boy continued to browse through several books that laid scattered amongst the table._

_"Of course I have, I have been preparing for this day for a long time, even you know that." Naruto said assuringly as he browsed through a specific paragraph on lightning chakra while holding a light bulb in another hand._

_Rin sighed as she looked at the young boy before her. True he was a genius, far beyond the likes of anyone she had seen before and she had hung around quite a few genius'. Yet the boy before her was intelligent, but frail. His diet was practically completely ramen at least until she had gotten to the boy. It still was pretty bad even at that. The diet had left him smaller then most of the students in his class, and he was already physically weaker then most due to his size and the fact that he was two years younger than everyone. "Yet every time I talk to you about this you blow me off. What do you plan to do if some even reasonably in shape civilian grapples you? What will you be able to do Naruto? Kami forbid that you encounter a shinobi on a mission and he grabs you. There is an issue with students that graduate early and that is why there are so few of them Naruto. Each student in history that has become remotely well known and graduated early all had something going for them."_

_Rin took a breath before continuing her lecture to Naruto. "Uchiha Itachi, our most recent young graduate, and as I am sure you have heard quite notorious as well. He had the sharingan, and a fighting style as well as a jutsu arsenal that revolved around knowing what your opponent is about to do before they do it. You then capitalize on it, not to mention he already had quite the destructive fire jutsu arsenal when he graduated. The boy also had an uncanny knack for using different types of clones in the most inventive ways. Hatake Kakashi was the son of a legendary war hero, and had possession of a unique blade that was virtually unable to be blocked. Our Fourth Hokage was a genius one that was akin to that of a needle in a hay stack, couple that he was under the watchful eye of one of the Legendary Sannin. No shinobi was willing to try and mess with their team."_

_She was of course careful to neglect to mention that the Fourth was the boy's father, and also that she personally felt that he was the greatest genius she had come to know. "Then there is finally The Legendary Trio. All of them graduated at a young age. Although you must take note that each and every one of them were a genius in their own right. Whether it be Tsunade who completely reconstructed the world of medical ninjutsu and is revered as the greatest medic ninja of all time. Or Jiraiya who was voted by his class to be least likely to succeed, he went on to create the very foundations of virtually the greatest spy network in the world. Orochimaru was an utter genius of ninjutsu, filling up countless lengths of the forbidden scroll with his own personal jutsu. On top of that they were the students under the Third Hokage, whom learned from the very best of his time."_

_Naruto wanted to tune Rin out, but her next statement only served to cause him to scowl._

_"What will you do if you ever get caught by someone and they can physically overpower you. Where are your bloodlines? Your unique tools? Your world renowned sensei? Or your team of genius'? If you get overpowered physically in your current state, even a civilian will pick you up off of the ground and start to lay into you with his fists. I don't want to see that happen." Rin said, with the slightest bit of worry in her usual calm almost monotone voice._

_Naruto took a deep breath and closed his eyes before gathering his things, "I am going to the store, I need to get a bunch of light bulbs before it closes." he said making his excuse before his exit. He had no desire to continue the "conversation" any longer._

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Naruto came back to reality with kunai coming down on his chest. 'What will I do?' he thought to himself quickly before acting as quickly as he could.

He moved his free hand under the kunai's incoming path and did his best to grip on to it, and keep it from getting pressed any further into his now gushing hand. Thankfully Ayane had chosen not to sit back and just watch, and had gotten a hold of the ninja wire Naruto had thrown. She whipped it out from several yards away and got it to wrap around the shinobi's neck similar to the reins of a horse.

Naruto knew that if he didn't act now on this moment of opportunity, they would both be dead. The shinobi on top of Naruto let go of the kunai he was trying to force into the boy, and grabbed onto the wire with both hands before he was choked by the girl behind him. He roughly yanked the wire, splitting open his hands, but it was more then enough force to get his job done. Ayane came barreling forward unable to hold off the strength of a fully grown jounin shinobi.

However it was this action that provided the slightest bit of slack that allowed Naruto to see his opening. He ripped the kunai out of his hand and ran forward before the jounin could strike Ayane, whom he was busy paying attention to. Naruto ran up grasping the slack of wire that the shinobi had made when he had yanked Ayane to him. Naruto then slid in the mud under the man slashing at his left achilles tendon before bouncing up behind the man, between him and Ayane. In quick succession he brought the wire from the front through the man's legs.

The man had since fallen to the ground in a crouch, and Naruto hooked the wire under the man's right arm pit. The fallen shinobi who was busy grasping the wire hanging loosely around his neck with one hand, and his drastically wounded heel with the other didn't even have time to react as Naruto had the time to hook the remaining length of wire around the front of the man's neck and loop it around his left armpit.

Now Rin had told him when he was younger a simply lesson that every shinobi sooner or later must learn, hesitation will get you killed. As such... he didn't hesitate.

Wind chakra burst forth around Naruto blowing everything away, even Ayane back a few steps, as it glided around in an instant before meshing with the wire. Naruto quickly put his foot on the man's back, and pushed forward.

Not even a moment later, Naruto was standing of the shredded remains of a former shinobi. Naruto was stepping on the small of the man's back as his intestines quickly spilled out from the sharp cut that had happened from the wire that was between the legs. It had cut all the way up to nearly the man's rib cage.

Naruto honestly didn't know how he felt about the circumstances, and with his... kill. If you could call it a kill. 'It was more of an execution.' he thought bitterly trying his best to ignore the pain in his hand and leg. He looked behind him to an Ayane whom appeared slightly sick, but far better from what he anticipated of his teammate.

Naruto ran a bloody hand through his hair that gave streaks of red to his blonde hair. Not that he cared of course. He motioned for Ayane to grab the girl she was so worried about helping and said, "Come on get the girl, we need to find Takeshi and Anko." Naruto said wincing slightly as he made his first step forward with his now bad leg.

Soon enough Naruto and Ayane were running through a path of death and destruction, doing their best to find their teammates. Unlike the girl on Ayane's shoulder, anyone that was not tended to after the initial attack was now laying there dead in a pool of their own blood mixed with mud.

They crossed the clearing to the other side of the surrounding forest in hopes of finding their teammates, and from what appeared to be a stroke of luck, they found one.

Takeshi was crouched down in front of two children, and a grown woman whom had both of her children in her arms. Off to the right was a short, pale, bald man that had a bloodied shirt with several shurikan sticking out of his chest. The man, despite not removing the shurikan had obviously bled out.

Takeshi had definitely seen better days, the boy looked exhausted. His clothes were ripped up, and he had a couple of gashes on his face too. His bottom right lip had a single cut that was leaking a little blood, but had seemingly since stopped bleed. He also had a cut on his right cheek that went from the corner of the upper bridge of the nose, down the center of the cheek. Although the later cut was certainly bleeding... quite profusely.

Takeshi squinted his right eye as he saw the duo approaching, and couldn't help but let a grin come to his face. He fiddled with, now what appeared to be a near invisible shinobi wire, and hooked it on a kunai that was firmly stuck into the ground. Once he had done this, he wasted absolutely no time in running up and giving Ayane quite the hug. On other circumstances, she probably would have kicked the poor kid in the balls for such an expression of affection in front of others... but... with all the shit they had been through, and despite a girl being balanced on her shoulder. She returned the hug with one arm with a sad smile.

Naruto held back his own smile as he saw two friends get back together, but Naruto was too annoyed with the pain in his hand and leg, even if they were slowly fading. "Takeshi." Naruto said through gritted teeth. "Do you have anything to seal up that wound of yours in that bag of tricks I saw you packing earlier?" Naruto said trying his best to sound casual, and slightly worried. In truth, he wanted something to seal up his leg... he was only partially worried about Takeshi.

The boy with an excessive amount of pockets had since moved back next to the family that was absolutely terrified of their situation. "Anything I could think of, I used it on the mom." he said jabbing a finger to the family behind him.

Naruto raised an eyebrow at that, and as quick as he possibly could, he made his way to the woman. That was when he saw her back. The back part of the shirt she was wearing was in shreds. It looked as if she was stabbed several times in the back, judging by the amount of stitching that was done at least.

Naruto searched his memory for any viable way Rin was telling him of how she had sealed up wounds for shinobi on the field when they didn't have supplies or were chakra exhausted. It took a few minutes naturally, but soon enough Naruto gathered an idea.

"Do you have any fireworks in that backpack of yours?" Naruto asked hopefully.

Takeshi began talking, all the while Naruto didn't wait for his answer and began digging through his backpack anyways. "Oh and do you have matches?" he asked, tuning out most of what the boy was saying.

"I was saving the fire works for later, to use to get hopefully Anko-sensei's attention drawn to us, and of course I have matches!" he added the last part as if it was a sin to not have matches.

Naruto didn't really care what the boy was saving them for, if they bled out, or if Takeshi went blind in one eye and became drowsy because he didn't stop bleeding, fireworks would do them no good in the long run.

Naruto got out a single firework and said, "I am going to seal your wound, and by the way, it is going to hurt like hell." he said as he took a kunai and cut into the firework where the gunpowder was located. "Ayane, I am going to need you to hold Takeshi down." he said.

Ayane quickly complied with Naruto, seeing as how he had taken the leadership role the moment they got back together, despite the fact that he was probably the most wounded out of the bunch. Ayane held Takeshi down by the shoulders, until Naruto came over to her with the split firework.

"Tilt his head, and hold it that way." Naruto said in a commanding voice. Takeshi looked slightly nervous about what was happening to him, and the mother had since turned away her children from the scene since she had a vague idea of what was about to happen.

Naruto took out the gunpowder from the container in the firework and sprinkled a healthy amount on the cut on both Takeshi's lip and cheek before setting it down at his side. He then took one of the few boxes of matches that he had found in Takeshi's bag. He quickly took one out and lit it before assisting Ayane in holding Takeshi down with his free hand.

He then said simply, "Close your eyes, I will be lighting it on three."

One...

'tsss'

'tsssssssss'

A blood curdling scream was drowned out by a gigantic explosion of smoke that reached far above the tree tops, that protruded a giant purple headed snake that had since flicked its tongue out.

"Wait here!" Naruto yelled to his team, but it fell on deaf ears as the bombardment of wind came from the fact of a giant snake appearing seemingly out on no where. However that didn't stop Naruto from running off after the beast.

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**"You have a lot of nerve you insignificant little woman," **the giant purple snake boss hissed out venomously. **"I should eat you along with these foolish baboons before me."** If a snake could sneer, Manda's current expression was definitely what it would appear like.

Anko did her best to swallow the lump that she felt was caught in her throat. Perhaps summoning the boss of the snake contract was not such a good idea.

She had just been fighting off the remaining Ame ninja, but summoned Manda as a ward of sorts. Something that would make every shinobi second guess coming within mile of her, or hopefully her team should she find them in tact. However she was brought out of her surprise for multiple reasons when she caught movement out of the corner of her eye.

It was Naruto running across the open clearing, and he appeared to be a bit beat up, but all in one piece. Yet what made her pale was what she saw happen not even seconds after she had found him. He was taken by a group of shinobi.

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Alright well my reasoning for what I feel is an absurdly long chapter compared to what I am used to, and for restarting this chapter is frankly simple and annoying. The chapter was frankly rather boring to write, this is mainly because I have really been pumped about writing the next chapter(or two) very badly.

Also a reason for this was I didn't really want to expand on the OCs in this arc, I wanted to really showcase Naruto's growth. However as I continued to write this chapter over and over again, I was having trouble keeping is my standard chapter length, and not including the OCs. So eventually(today) I just said screw it and knocked out a chapter. I was actually likely going to keep going to about 10-11k words much to my displeasure if I didn't cut myself off at the end and leave it like that.

Another thing I also did for this story recently was I did a lot and I mean a lot of fun plotting with it. I originally started this story knowing a vague idea of where I was going, and no idea where I was going to end. I still don't know the later, but I know a lot of ideas as to where I can take this story now which I am really happy about. I also think a few things I am going to add into the story as I develop Naruto's skill set you will enjoy reading. Not just for entertainment purposes but for actual knowledge :).

Anyways read and review please.

Also I am still open to more traps, and jutsus etc. I will point out now, these are catered to the Hanzo/Pein battle, since you can all tell by now it is coming. You can now address abilities appropriate to skill level if you want. A couple reviews I say had some good ideas, one I know I am going to implement already. Anyways till next time everyone :).


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